32 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



made. The structure of the Elk mountains in Colorado is distinct 

 and every feature stands out so sharply that a child in geology can read 

 the story. But the case was very different before W. H. Holmes 

 recognized in the crumpled mass of fragments merely a crushed, faulted 

 fold and restored the original lines. The symmetry of the Jura 

 mountains is the admiration of geologists, but the key to unlock its 

 case of mysteries was not found until H. D. Eogers, fresh from his 

 Appalachian studies, proved the simplicity of its structure. The older 

 geologists made our geology. In most of the United States, Canada 

 and Europe, the share of recent geologists is like that of workmen who 

 fill up cracks in the walls and interior of a building and put on the 

 finishing touches, that the edifice may be the better fitted to resist the 

 ravages of time. 



The writer is not of those who believe that the older days were 

 better than these or that the geologists of half a century ago were 

 superior to those of our own day. Such a conception would be arrant 

 folly. But he is convinced that in some respects the work of too many 

 geologists is defective and that the cause is not hard to find. The 

 methods are too refined and dependence on them tends to make the 

 process too mechanical. The older geologists had practically no appli- 

 ances except their eyes, and comparatively few of them had more than a 

 passing knowledge of topography. The contrast appears sharply in the 

 reports. The writer, in endeavoring to ascertain conditions prevalent 

 during deposition of coals in the United States and Europe, has exam- 

 ined carefully scores of thousands of pages in several languages, so that 

 he writes feelingly. Within recent times the tendency has been to 

 record chiefly such observations as have the accuracy of instrumental 

 determination. Other matters seem to be unimportant; they are 

 commonplaces, unworthy of record. Yet those commonplaces are the 

 essentials of pure geology. Certainly, one is justified in asking that 

 men who have only to revise, with the aid of later developments, the 

 work of other men, should add greatly to knowledge in the province 

 of pure geology. It is more than probable that the demand for eco- 

 nomic facts dulls the vision for other things, as it did too often 60 years 

 ago, but there is room for protest against continuance of the condi- 

 tion. One may be pardoned for expressing the conviction that the weird 

 work of Land Classification for the United States is likely to be, as it 

 were, a red-hot iron rod passed close to the eyes of probably the ablest 

 corps of geologists this world has known. 



