CHAPTER 105.
JOINT MEMORIAL AND RESOLUTION RELATIVE TO A GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORY.
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled.
Your memorialists, the legislative assembly of the Territory of Dakota, respectfully represent, that a geological survey should be made without delay. It is well known that extensive coal-fields underlay large portions of our Dakota plains and valleys, in places where timber is too scarce to admit of settlement, unless coal be procured for fuel. There are also valuable salt springs and salt lakes; and recent discoveries, by the American Fur Company, furnishes valuable proof that gold exists in dust and quartz, at the eastern base of the Black hills, in sufficient quantities to attract the attention of our government.
Your memorialists believe that the time has arrived in our national affairs when the nation should turn her eyes for gold north of latitude 36° 30′, and that a geological survey, by demonstrating the mineral wealth of this territory, would facilitate the settlement and sale of the public lands, by an industrious population, who would speedily develop the hidden resources of the North-West, which has hitherto been regarded as a barren waste. We, therefore, pray your honorable body to make a reasonable appropriation for a geological survey of this territory.
- Approved April 26, 1862.
