"Our botany, it is true, has been extensively and successfully investigated; but this field is still _rich_, and rewards every new research with some interesting discovery. Our mineralogy, however, is a treasure but just opened. That both science and art may expect much advantage from this source, is sufficiently evinced by the success which has crowned the active efforts of a few ardent cultivators of this science: several new species have been added to it in this country; great numbers of American localities of minerals discovered, and interesting additions made to our materials, for the useful and ornamental arts. "Mineralogy is most intimately connected with our arts, and especially with agriculture. Such are the disguises worn by many most useful mineral substances, that an unskilful observer is liable to pass a thing by, as worthless, which, if better informed, he would seize with avidity; and, still more frequently, a worthless substance, clothed perhaps in a brilliant and attractive exterior, excites hopes altogether delusive, and induces expense, without a possibility of remuneration. A diffusion of correct knowledge on this subject is the only adequate remedy for either evil. "Our geology, also, presents a most interesting field of inquiry. A grand outline has recently been drawn by Mr. Maclure, with a masterly hand, and with a vast extent of personal observation and labor: but to fill up the detail, both observation and labor still more extensive are demanded; nor can the object be effected till more good geologists are formed, and distributed over our extensive territory. "To account for the formation and changes of our globe, by excursions of the imagination, often splendid and imposing, but usually visionary, and almost always baseless, was, till within half a century, the business of geological speculations; but this research has now assumed a more sober character; the science of geology has been reared upon numerous and accurate observations of _facts_; and standing thus upon the basis of induction, it is entitled to a rank among those sciences which Lord Bacon's Philosophy has contributed to create. "The outlines of American geology appear to be particularly grand, simple, and instructive; and a knowledge of the important facts, and general principles of this science, is of vast practical use, as regards the interests of agriculture, and the research for useful minerals. Geological and mineralogical descriptions, and maps of particular states and districts, are very much needed in the United States; and to excite a spirit to furnish them will form one leading object of the contemplated journal.