22 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



college in the midst of each. There is no reason why a system of joint 

 effort, which from time immemorial has accomplished such wonderful 

 things for religion and social order, should not be equally efficacious in 

 scientific matters. A feeling of honorable pride should induce the of- 

 ficers and students of each institution to illustrate the flora and fauna, 

 the mineralogy and geology of its collegiate district, more perfectly 

 than any stranger could. The amount of intellectual labor Avhich is 

 utilized, and the number of valuable data collected each year, form 

 but a small proportion of what is annually lost to the community 

 through lack of organized effort. In a tersely-written letter to the 

 Governor of Pennsylvania, urging the need of a new survey, Prof. 

 Lesley says : " A most important function of a geological survey is, to 

 preserve knowledge for future use. Science is cumulative. It makes 

 slow and painful advances. It is obliged to collect an abundance of 

 facts before it comes to true conclusions. Pennsylvania has lost enor- 

 mously during the last twenty years by having no bureau of statistics, 

 no corps of observation and publication, to observe and preserve, col- 

 late and relate, the facts of its geology and mineralogy, as they have 

 successively made their appearance. No commonwealth can afford to 

 be without such an apparatus for preserving from loss and forgetful- 

 ness the discoveries and investigations of private persons, even for one 

 single year of its existence. Thousands of most valuable facts have 

 been lost to us, during an interval, which cannot be recovered. How 

 many openings on coal-veins are now covered up, no one being able to 

 give any reliable information about them. Twenty thousand oil- 

 borings have been made, and not one hundred of them are on record, 

 if discoverable. Hundreds of gangways have been driven and aban- 

 doned, and cannot now be studied, many of which woidd disclose the 

 nature of faults and disturbances which affect neighboring properties, 

 and overlying and underlying beds not yet worked, where certain 

 knowledge is preserved to govern the future mining-engineer in his 

 plans for getting at the mineral. He must work as completely in the 

 dark as if his knowledge had never been got, and often paid for at a 

 ruinous expense. The sooner a geological survey is established, the 

 better for the future interests of the State, as well as for its present 

 necessities." At the height of the oil-fever in Pennsylvania, appreciat- 

 ing the wonderful opportunity which the sinking of innumerable wells 

 afforded for obtaining complete geological sections of a vast area, I 

 spent a long time in endeavoring to obtain from the superintendents 

 engaged in boring, by personally visiting hundreds of wells in succes- 

 sion, the records of their work, and specimens of the penetrated strata. 

 Printed circulars, asking for copies of such records in the interests of 

 science, were sent to the secretary of every oil-company within our 

 knowledge. Partly from the disgusting greed which possessed the 

 oil-speculators to the exclusion of every higher feeling, and partly 

 from an insane dread that the possession of such knowledge would be- 



