According to this, there is a report now due the State; but, as no part of the appropriation of last year for the continuance of the Survey has been yet received, or is likely to be, for months to come, and as the appropriation for printing is in the same condition, the work has been necessarily delayed. As it is presumed that the amount due the Survey from last year will be available some time next winter, it is not anticipated that there will be any difficulty in issuing the first volume; and, if the Legislature takes the necessary steps early in the session, two, or perhaps three, volumes can be published in 1864. It is intended that they shall be of royal octavo size, in the best style of typography, and illustrated with maps, sections, plates of fossils, etc. The maps will be engraved on copper and printed from transfers, in order the original plates may be preserved, to be used, after necessary corrections and revisions, in the final report, or otherwise, as may be found desirable. The maps will be sold separately, with or without the geological coloring, as desired. The first volume will be chiefly devoted to the geology of the Coast Ranges; the second to that of the Sierra Nevada and the mining districts of the eastern slope. If my plans are not thwarted by the Legislature, both these volumes will be issued together next year, and will form a “Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the State of California.” By the law, as it now stands, the publications of the Survey are required to be copy-righted, and sold for the benefit of the Common School Fund; hence, it has been impossible to communicate to the public, from time to time, through the medium of the Academy’s publications, the results which have been obtained. It is proper to say, in this connection, that the extent of territory to be examined, the complexity of the phenomena, and the bearing which our investigations will have on important questions of economical interest, make it eminently proper that there should not be an undue haste exhibited, on the part of the Survey, to place its results before the world. We can only hope to influence the mining public, in this State, by degrees; and it is necessary, first of all, that it should be made clearly to appear, with the lapse of time, that our statements are to be relied on as closely approximating to the truth. Professor Whitney communicated the following letter from Professor Brush, giving the results of a chemical investigation of the meteoric iron presented to the city of San Francisco, by General Carleton: SHEFFIELD LABORATORY OF YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN, March 30th, 1863. _Professor J. D. Whitney, State Geologist, San Francisco, Cal._