N. S. SHALER, DIREctor. REPORTS OF PROGRESS. VOLUME III. NEW SERIES. C STEREOTYPED FOR THE SURVEY BY MAJOR, JOHNSTON & BARRETT. 1877. INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD VOLUME. As will be seen from the table of contents, this volume is an assemblage of the various Annual Reports of the Director of the Kentucky Surveys made during the years from 1873 to 1877, inclusive. The law requires these Reports to be made from time to time, and, prescriptively or by implication, demands that they each shall give a summary of the operations of the Survey, in a condensed form, for the information of the Legislature. It will therefore be seen that this volume must contain matters which have generally been more fully treated elsewhere. The text itself makes frequent references to the source of fuller information on these various subjects. The reader is, however, referred to the general index of the Survey publications, which will constitute the seventh volume of this series of Reports. It is now in preparation, and will be ready for publication within the coming year. Its appearance, however, will necessarily depend upon the continuance of the appropriations of the Survey. The reader's attention is called to the fact that the work of the Surveys set forth in this volume has been hampered in many ways. In the first place, the appropriations at the service of the present Survey have averaged only seventeen thousand dollars per annum for all expenses, including printing. In the next place, the Survey has been required to concern itself with nearly all the material interests, and with all the scientific problems that are apparent in the State. Less money has been expended on the whole Survey than has been given to the printing of any one of several volumes of Government Surveys. The annual grant for all the purposes of the Survey, including geology, zoology, botany, archæology, the topography, the cabinet, and all the expenses of publication, have been but about twice the sum paid by one State as salary to the Director of its Survey. It should be said, also, that the law provides for the employment of the Director for but a part of each year. The larger part of the Director's time, while engaged in the service of the Survey, has been given. to the routine work of administration, so that his total field work has not exceeded about three months in each of the years of his service. The great size of the field of operations has made it necessary to have the work of the several assistants localized in various subdivisions of the area, so that the Director has necessarily been employed in keeping the various works in correllation the one with the other. While each Assistant is to be held responsible for his own opinions, and while their individuality has been considered to the utmost point, there are none of the various Reports of the several volumes which have not been carefully examined by the Director, who has, in all cases, read the manuscript and the final proof, and in many cases has repeatedly reviewed the matter. As the Survey has, at the present time, about four thousand 8vo and 4v0 pages completed, or in advance preparation, this work of continual review has been equivalent to critically reading not less than twelve thousand pages of ordinary matter. this labor must be added the task of writing an average of two thousand letters per annum concerning the work of the Survey, and making journeys that have demanded not less than thirty days per annum, in railway and steamboat transportation. Thus it will be seen that the Director of such a Survey has little time for special work in the field. The best that he can do is to secure unity and completeness in the work, occasionally putting his shoulder to the wheel to lift over some obstacle. To I cannot command words to express the lively sense of gratitude I feel to my fellow-workers of the Survey. Whatever shortcomings may be found in the work of the Survey, are not to be attributed to a want of zeal and fidelity among my Assistants. |