Mineral Industries and Geology of Certain Areas - Vermont Agency ...

INTRODUCTION.
The history of geological work in this State has been eventful
and in some respects extraordinary. As early as 1836 the attention
of the Legislature was called to the importance and value
of a geological survey, and in 1837 Mr. (afterwards Governor)
Eaton as chairman of the committee on education made a carefully
prepared report in favor of such survey, but nothing was
done until 1844, when an act was passed enabling the Governor
to appoint a State Geologist who was to be a person possessing
a competent knowledge of scientific and practical geology
and mineralogy" and who should "commence and prosecute
a thorough geological survey of the State," etc.
A moderate sum was appropriated to enable the Geologist to
carry out the instructions of this act. The Governor appointed
as the first State Geologist Professor Charles B. Adams, at the
time connected with Middlebury College, a man eminently fitted
for the position. He began the work of his office in the spring
of 1845. He did much exploring and studying, but the results
of his labors were largely lost, as will appear later. He published
four preliminary reports. Professor Adams died in 1853.
Professor Zadock Thompson, who had been Professor Adams's
assistant from the first, was appointed his successor.
Professor Thompson, though entering upon his office with
enthusiasm, published no general report, still, as will be seen
by reading his biography, he had planned a very extensive and
complete work on the natural history of Vermont. To this as
well as much other work, death, which came in 1856, put an end.
• As Professor Thompson was so fully identified with not only
the geological but all scientific work that was carried on in the
State during the last twenty years of his life, it has seemed
no more than a fitting testimony to the value of his labors that
the following sketch of his life, originally published by the
writer in The American Geologist, Vol. XXIX, p. 65, should be
given in this connection.