This circular presents the history of "geological survey" in Texas from its beginning in 1858, through its intermittent early history, to [1965]. It also shows that any organization which carried the name "survey" was very short-lived in Texas. Whether this is because of early legislators’ convictions that a survey was something that was organized to do a specific job and then terminated, or whether there were deeper causes for the ephemeral nature of the early surveys is a matter for more thorough historical research and analysis.