STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 227 



vestigations connected with and growing out of them. Much of the 

 best talent of the time was engaged upon these stupendous labors, and 

 around the eminent chiefs were gathered bands of enterprising stu- 

 dents, whose methods of scientific work were formed beneath the eyes 

 of masters. The assistants of earlier surveys are the directors of those 

 now in progress, and the crude sketches of former times are replaced 

 by huge volumes filled with exhaustive details and magnificent gen- 

 eralizations. 



Great as has been the work accomplished, the question may never- 

 theless be asked, whether the State geological surveys are, or have 

 been, organized in such a manner as to exert the greatest possible in- 

 fluence upon the scientific progress of their respective States. As here- 

 tofore constituted, they have consisted of a director and a number of 

 assistants, who have drawn their salaries and prosecuted their labors 

 until the State appropriations have been exhausted. In some instances 

 the work of the assistants has been appropriated by the director in 

 such a manner that the geological survey has appeared to the public 

 to be entirely represented in the person of its presiding officer. Grant- 

 ing that this officer is better qualified than any one else, it is evident, 

 nevertheless, that a geological bureau, thus constituted, must reject a 

 large part of the available talent of a State. Still worse, by taking 

 possession of the field, and by closing the columns of the report to all 

 but the paid officials of the survey, many whose labors might be of 

 great value are rendered indifferent or hostile to the work. A bureau 

 framed in the manner above described is proper enough in the survey 

 of Territories still largely occupied by Indians, but it is by no means 

 suited to the condition or needs of a densely-populated State. When 

 a dozen flourishing colleges exist within the boundaries of a State, is 

 it well that a general geological survey should be made in such a 

 manner as to apportion little if any of its work specifically to them? 

 A survey so constituted tends to encourage a disposition, unfortunately 

 only too prevalent among our collegiate professors, to regard their 

 entire duty as performed when the labor of teaching is accomplished. 

 A few days ago an eminent civil engineer, who in his moments of lei- 

 sure has collected one of the finest cabinets of minerals in this country 

 and has made himself a practised mineralogist, complained that, after 

 twenty years of disappointments, he had grown wearied of sending 

 doubtful specimens to professors in colleges for determination, and 

 of receiving no answers after the lapse of many months. As a final 

 resort, he has determined new species himself, and had the chemical 

 analysis performed by a hard-worked chemist in a manufacturing 

 establishment. A large part of the work of a geological survey should 

 be assigned to the colleges in a State, and should be voluntarily per- 

 formed by their professors. Every State from Maine to Florida should 

 be divided up into collegiate districts, the scientific development of 

 which should be more immediately under the care of the particular 



