sisting of six hundred and fifty-six closely printed octavo pages, was duly issued. There were three parts to the work, each of which, if printed less compactly, would have made a fair-sized volume. The first was devoted to the natural features and productions of the State; the second was the civil history; and the third was Mr. Thompson's Gazetteer, revised and enlarged. When Mr. Goodrich several times urged him to issue it in three volumes at six dollars instead of one volume at two dollars and fifty cents, and thereby get twice as much profit from each copy, he steadily declined. Having felt the inconvenience of limited means himself, his sympathies were with those in the same position, and he did not deem it right that those who could not afford the higher price should be deprived of a benefit that their richer neighbors enjoyed, even though the lower price would give him but scant return for the labor, time, and money he had expended. On its appearance the General Assembly of Vermont, regarding the work as a benefit to the State, subscribed for a hundred copies and "voted five hundred dollars to the author. By this means and the proceeds of other sales he was enabled to cancel his debt to his publisher in little more than a year.
At about this time Mr. Thompson issued a text-book ol the Geology and Geography of Vermont, in which his power of clear and concise statement is well exemplified. He found time also to prepare annual astronomical calculations for the Messrs. Walions, of Montpelier. In 1845 he issued a pamphlet Guide to Lake George and Lake Champlain, with a map and other illustrations.
A State Geological Survey having been authorized by the General Assembly, the Governor in 1845 appointed Prof. Charles B. Adams State Geologist. Prof. Adams chose Mr. Thompson and the Rev. S. R. Hall as his assistants. Li one season these two men explored together one hundred and ten townships. The analyses required by the survey were made at New Haven by Denison Olmsted, Jr., until his death in 1846, afterward by Thomas Sterry Hunt. The survey came to an untimely end by the refusal of the General Assembly of 1847-'48 to make an appropriation for preparing its final report. The notes, specimens, and other materials gathered were allowed to lie in boxes at Burlington and Montpelier for about a year. Then, having had a partial sense of the value of these materials impressed upon it, the General Assembly authorized the Governor to appoint some suitable person to get them together and deposit them in the State House. Governor Coolidge appointed Prof. Thompson, and the latter reported the execution of his commission in October, 1849. Many of the field notes were in a peculiarly abbreviated shorthand used by Prof. Adams, and, on his death in 1853, became almost wholly useless.
In 1847 Governor Eaton had appointed Prof. Thompson to
