84 The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XVII, No. 3, 



stock and perpetuate his race. We are ready to grant that 

 geology is a cultural subject of no mean proportions, and that 

 able teachers should be continually turned out to apply this 

 culture to the rest of mankind. AVe believe men and women 

 can live better for the vision a survey of our science can give, 

 and we wish that many more than at present might gain that 

 vision. But we are not ready to grant the rest. We believe 

 that Latin and Greek are dead languages and yet that they have a 

 cultural value and should be taught to large numbers of young 

 people by competent teachers, and that a few of these young 

 people should pursue the languages far enough to become in 

 turn competent teachers. 



We believe that geology is not in its coffin, nor on its dying 

 bed. To establish this belief one can profitably note what yet 

 remains to be done in several geologic lines, and the present 

 rate of progress along these lines. 



1. In the field of topographic mapping, the first serious 

 work undertaken in any new region by our Federal survey, there 

 is yet something to be done. The United States and Alaska are 

 large enough that w^hen mapped on the scale now most generally 

 used, one mile equals one inch, 16,000 sheets will be necessary 

 to contain them. We have been making these maps at the 

 rate of some 200 per annum recently. At this rate eight}^ years 

 will yet be needed to cover our land. And this is only prelimi- 

 nary to geologic work. This scale is much smaller than is used 

 for the more refined work done in England, Switzerland and 

 Germany. We have a few sheets for important mining regions 

 or other special places on a larger scale. See California Alluvial 

 Valley; sheets of Grand Canyon and Yosemite, Aspen and 

 Mother Lode regions. Perhaps 35% of Europe is topograph- 

 ically mapped on some scale adequate for other geologic work. 

 Portions of Egypt, all of Palestine, portions of India, China, 

 Brazil and South Africa, patches in Australia, most of Japan and 

 New Zealand, and small areas in Southern Canada are also 

 mapped. Nearly all, however, of the earth outside of the 

 United States and Europe is still unmapped on such scales, and 

 progress thereon will be generally slow. When the United 

 States and the countries of Europe have completed their work at 

 home they will find many years of work yet to do in other 

 continents. When most of the land is mapped on a scale of one 

 mile to the inch many areas can very profitably be mapped on 



