[2] Before the first Geological Survey of Kentucky was carried out, an initial reconnaissance was performed by Professor William Williams Mather in 1838, hired by Governor James Clark, after State Senator Wingate and State Representative J. T. Morehead had introduced resolutions in the Kentucky General Assembly on 1837-12-12 calling for a survey to be performed.
[4] The full, First Series, geological survey was established by law on 1854-03-04 and only partly completed by David Dale Owen before he died.
[1] The Second survey was headed by a formal State Geologist, Governor Preston H. Leslie appointing N. S. Shaler from Harvard University for the task in 1873.
[4] It took 7 years to complete, with a team of geologists working under Shaler, and yielded a Second Series Part One of reports that came to six volumes, 2886 pages, with an ancillary set of memoirs.
[6] A 1904 law established a third survey, and directly appointed the head of the Geological Museum, professor Charles J. Norwood, as its director.
[9] Jillson himself was a prolific writer on the subject of geology, and he had a policy of hiring geologists for fieldwork during the summer, rather than for permanent year-round work that might conflict with other commitments.
[2] This lasted barely 2 years, with McFarlan replaced by Daniel J. Jones in 1934 and the Survey was reorganized again as a subdivision of the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals.
[2] Jones retired in 1958, and the bureau was divorced from the Department of Geology that year just beforehand, with Wallace W. Hagan becoming both state geologist and director.