will depend upon the intelligent interest of the citizens of the State whether or not the good beginning shall be prosecuted to a good end.
If the question of utility be raised; if it be asked—as it undoubtedly will be by the common run of business men—What is the use of such a report as the one I have now the honor to transmit to you? Why should the State expend the hard-earned money of its citizens in publishing drawings of strange creatures buried in the mud of ancient peatbogs or in the sands of the sea bottom of ages long ago—creatures unlike any which now live, creatures belonging to an order of the world long since changed and done away—I have no definite answer to make to such a question. In a business sense it is of no use whatever, if one regards merely the facts drawn on the page plate. But even the merest business man will comprehend its utility, if he be interested in coal mines and can assure himself that the recognition of certain forms in one particular coal bed is likely to aid him in identifying that particular coal bed in other localities. The study of fossil shells found in formations beneath the coal measures is a really practical guide to certain limestone beds, and sometimes fixes in a very practical manner the order of rocks containing iron ore deposits, especially where downthrow faults have disturbed or concealed that order. If the location of mineral beds has anything to do with the order of formations, which no intelligent person questions, and if the study of fossils is a help in the study of the order of formations, which all geologists know to be true, then the Government is justified in ordering a complete survey of the fossils of the State, and the publication of their forms for the instruction of the people.
But apart from all money considerations, every plate of these extinct forms, so strange to living eyes, is a lesson for each and every man, enlarging the range of human education, and disciplining the intellect to the love and comprehension of the laws and forces of nature, so benificent to mankind.
Philadelphia, June 18, 1884.
