brooks: applied geology 23 



must be the final arbiters as to what phase of the science is to be 

 emphasized. In our democracy the citizen has a right to inquire 

 what he, as a member of the body politic, is gaining by expendi- 

 tures from the public purse. 



It is estimated, on the best data available, that during the past 

 quarter century the total grants for geologic work made by state 

 and federal governments aggregate over eight million dollars. 

 This may be regarded as evidence of public confidence. More 

 significant to the present discussion is the annual grant of funds 

 during this interval, and this is illustrated by a curve on the same 

 diagram with those showing character of publications (Fig. 1). 

 This curve is in part based on estimates, but these are without 

 doubt sufficiently accurate to indicate that the total annual 

 appropriations of state and federal governments for geology have 

 been augmented at a rate which proves that they are affected by 

 some other factor than that of increase of population. The annual 

 grant of funds is now more than double that of twenty-five years 

 ago. It is probably safe to interpret this as indicating that the 

 present economic tendency in geology is approved by the people 

 of the United States. The close parallelism between the lines 

 marking the publications relating to applied geology and the 

 annual allotments of public funds for geologic surveys is probably 

 not entirely fortuitous. 



Perhaps the best measure of popular confidence in the results 

 of geologic research is the number of different geologic organiza- 

 tions supported by public funds. We are apt to credit the obtain- 

 ing of government support for this or that research entirely to 

 some individual or organization, forgetting that, until the general 

 public has in a measure been persuaded of its value, all ef- 

 forts would be useless. Therefore, when we find geologic sur- 

 veys thruout the country supported by commonwealths having 

 widely different social and industrial conditions, it is fair to pre- 

 sume that the average citizen has acquired the belief that these 

 are attaining results beneficial to the community. The numerical 

 increase of state geologic surveys during the last twenty-five 

 years is illustrated by the curve on the diagram before you which 

 marks the percentage of total number of states supporting geo- 



