To many it may seem unnecessary to say anything on the utility of Geological Surveys, because they have already been tested and found to be of great practical value by most civilized countries. Indeed, it is impossible to develop the mineral and agricultural resources of a State in an economical manner without such a survey. Every citizen of Texas is more or less interested in having its mineral and agricultural resources made known, in order that a proper estimate may be made of the materials appertaining, to the State, their extent and their localities. In regard to valuable minerals, we want to know where they may be found, or where we may not expect to find them. This last item is by no means the least useful part of the knowledge imparted by a Geological Survey, for it will often save useless expenditure of time and money. Individual expenditures in the vain search after gold, silver, copper, lead, or other useful metals, to which may be added coal, are public as well as private losses; because the entire wealth of the State chiefly consists in the sum total of its individual wealth; hence what individuals lose is so much subtracted from the whole taxable property, which adds to the taxes of the remainder. On the other hand the discovery of gold and silver, or other useful minerals increases the wealth of the State, and also adds to its sum total of individual wealth; hence all are interested in a Geological Survey, as a matter of public economy. The iron mines in Llano county are alone worth to the State more than one hundred times the amount which the Geological Survey has already cost. Before the Geological Survey of the State of New York began, it was truly estimated that more had been spent in the vain search after coal and other minerals in that State, than was sufficient to defray the entire expenses of its survey, which has been in progress during the last twenty years or more. The annual tax now derived from her iron mines and iron works is greater than the cost of the survey, and this is only one of the important benefits which that State has thus obtained. Other mineral resources have been developed; its agriculture has improved; its lands have been improved (not worn out;) so that they have increased in value more than an hundred fold. Not that her Geological Survey has done all this, but it has certainly been a very important agent in making these results. The value. of the iron productions