the harmonies that have peopled, in living and beautiful reality,
the whole world?


PROFESSOR HITCHCOCK ON REMINISCENCES.

ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, Esq. of New York, introduced Prof. HITCHCOCK, of
Amherst, as a gentleman whose name was very familiar, who had laid
aside, voluntarily, the charge of one of the largest colleges in New
England, but who could never lay aside the honors he had earned in the
literature and science of geology.

After a few introductory observations, Prof. HITCHCOCK said:--

This, I believe, is the first example in which a State Government
in our country has erected a museum for the exhibition of its
natural resources, its mineral and rock, its plants and animals,
living and fossil. And this seems to me the most appropriate spot
in the country for placing the first geological hall erected by
the Government; for the County of Albany was the district where
the first geological survey was undertaken, on this side of the
Atlantic, and, perhaps, the world. This was in 1820, and ordered
by that eminent philanthropist, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who,
three years later, appointed Prof. Eaton to survey, in like
manner, the whole region traversed by the Erie Canal. This was
the commencement of a work, which, during the last thirty years,
has had a wonderful expansion, reaching a large part of the
States of the Union, as well as Canada, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick, and, I might add, several European countries, where
the magnificent surveys now in progress did not commence till