The Daily Cincinnati Republican, And Commercial Register

FOR THE CINCINNATI REPUBLICAN.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.
Mr. Editor:--I should be pleased to see your
influential and widely circulated paper, enlisted in
calling public attention, and especially the members
of the Legislature of Ohio, to that part of the Governor's
Message which recommends a geological
and mineralogical survey of our State. The view
taken by his Excellency of the importance of this
work, is undoubtedly the correct one; and, every
argument should be put in requisition, that may be
necessary to induce the Legislature to order the
survey. It is especially important, at the moment
when we are planning and executing our works of
internal improvement, that the mineral resources
of the region which they are to traverse, should be
fully known. Our canals, turnpikes, and rail roads
are designed to render available those sources of
wealth which have been bountifully bestowed upon
us: They are to carry the raw material to the workshops
of art and ingenuity among the people.--
Is it not obvious then, that to make these works
confer the benefits they are intended to bestow,
that the localities of the iron, coal, lead, salt, lime,
gypsum, marl and marble, that have been already
or may be hereafter discovered in our state, should
be accurately known? How is this knowledge to be
obtained? Are we to wait the slow development
of our mineral resources, which chance may make?
Are we to sit still and see our honest citizens, year
after year, searching for silver, and iron, and copper,
in regions where, the immutable laws of the physical
world declare they will never be found? Or
has science revealed to us a mode by which, with
great certainty, an examination of the rocks which
lie beneath our soil, will indicate the kind of minerals
that are imbedded with them? It has. Geology
is that science; and the survey which has been
so warmly recommended by the Governor, is precisely
the one which will reveal to our farmers the
true value of their farms. It will tell them what
minerals may be found upon them--what valuable
clays may there lie imbedded--and what materials
for enriching and preserving the soil. The earth
is the main source of the substantial wealth of every
country. Every thing that tends to develop the
treasures with which she is laden, tends in a high
degree to advance individual and general prosperity.
It would perhaps be difficult to indicate any one
public enterprise, the execution of which would
confer upon all classes of our population, more lasting
advantages, than an accurate, scientific, geological,
and mineralogical survey of the State. The
expenses of such a work is indeed too inconsiderable
to be estimated. It is probable that a sum not
exceeding three thousand dollars would meet the
expenditures necessary for the entire survey. And
what are three, or five, or ten thousand dollars, in
the accomplishment of such a work, among a million
of people, industrious, enterprising, and prosperous
in a high degree? Absolutely nothing!