Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/128

122 Potomac section. Thus the grand column of our Palæozoic formations was established, and the credit of it is due to Prof. Booth.… Both Prof. Rogers's assistants resigned at the end of the year; and Mr. Booth was then appointed immediately, or not long thereafter, State Geologist of Delaware. His work in Delaware was published in his report, an octavo volume, now so rare that it is impossible to obtain a copy. My belief is that Prof. Booth abandoned field work very early in his career, and devoted himself to his chemical laboratory. At all events he is known in science altogether as an accomplished chemist, with a great reputation for diligence and accuracy, especially in the field of mineral analysis." The Delaware survey was under Prof. Booth's charge in the years 1837-'38; and a summary of the results to which it led was published in the Annual Report of the Survey in 1839, and in a memoir on the subject in 1841.

The act providing for the geological survey of Delaware required that an equal portion of the appropriation should be expended in each county. But the several counties did not all need the same attention. The geologist, however, was expected to spend an equal portion of his time in each county. He improved the time, when the geological work did not demand the whole of it, by traversing different parts of the counties, and imparting to the people such knowledge relative to agriculture as lay within the sphere of his information; and he embodied agricultural essays in his report. Pertinently to this instance of a characteristic weakness of law-makers, Prof. Booth remarked in his report on the unwisdom of allowing local interests to sway so much in legislation, when more could be gained in the long run by taking broader views. Believing that the wealth of the people could be promoted by their employing their own resources, however limited, he directed much time to the development of such as deposits of shells and decomposed organic matter, glass-making materials, potter's clay, iron, and copperas.

In explanation of the admission of theoretical matter into the report, when the work was designed to possess a practical character, he said: "In all probability the number of those who may peruse these pages is large, and their attainments are of a varied nature; some being purely practical men, others again having made considerable attainments in literature and science; and hence it was deemed advisable to adapt the memoir to the various demands of the community.… I am well aware of an opinion, too generally prevalent among men devoted to practical pursuits, that an attention to theories is rather prejudicial than otherwise to the successful pursuit of business. Whatever grounds they may have for such views, they are not valid when applied in a general way to theoretic investigations; for, independently of