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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/274

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lished results of systematic field studies of a system which has since been elaborately investigated by other geologists.

The Geological Society of Pennsylvania, though its career was only brief—1833 to 1836—lived long enough and was vigorous enough to secure the institution by the Legislature in 1836 of a geological survey of that State. On the organization of the survey. Prof. Rogers was appointed geologist, with James Curtis Booth and John F. Frazer assistant geologists, and Robert E. Rogers, the fourth of the "Rogers brothers," chemist. Six annual reports of the progress of this survey were made to the Legislature from 1846 to 1852, when it was suspended through the failure of the two houses to make an appropriation for its further prosecution. For the next ten years—1842 to 1851—Prof. Rogers was employed by various coal companies as an expert. During this period—in 1846—he established his residence in Boston. In 1855 the preparation of a final report of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey was committed to him, on condition that he should receive sixteen thousand dollars, should furnish the State one thousand copies of the book, and should own the copyright of it. In order to command the best work possible with the amount appropriated by the State, he had the printing and engraving of the book done in Edinburgh, more cheaply and quickly than they could be afforded in like style in the United States, and removed there in order to supervise them. The report, which embodies the results of eighteen years of labor, brought the author fame and applause, but pecuniary loss instead of profit; for the cost of it exceeded the appropriation by many thousand dollars. The book, in two quarto volumes, contains 1682 pages, is illustrated by 778 woodcuts and diagrams in the text, 69 plates, and 18 folded sheets of sections, and was published by W. Blackwood & Sons (London and Edinburgh), and J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, in 1858. The highest commendation was given to this work by Prof. Rogers's successor on the geological survey, who said that, on the reading of the special memoirs at the end of the second volume, there could be "no sentiment but one of admiration for the breadth of his views and the clearness, force, and elegance of his delineations. No geological paper has ever appeared excelling in every good quality his memoir on coal."

In a report of the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which Prof. Rogers was a member, dated May 28, 1867, these words appear: “His first systematic geological labor was that of conducting the survey of the State of New Jersey. . . . While thus engaged, a similar survey of the great State of Pennsylvania was provided for by the Legislature, and placed under his direction. . . . During the early progress of this work he produced in conjunction with his brother,