i894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 407 



alone or in combination, would have produced a solid road-bed." " A 

 large part of the country, including the greater portion of the Southern 

 States, and some portions of the Mississippi Basin, has been thought 

 to be essentially destitute of materials suitable for the construction of 

 good roads. The inquiries that have been made by geologists have 

 shown that in many places within these regions there are hidden 

 deposits of gravel and other sorts of rock, which, when properly used, 

 might give excellent highways, and that around the margin of this 

 great area, often within the limits of convenient railway distribution, 

 there are abundant supplies of rock well fitted for such use. It only 

 remains to discover the supply of such stone as is cheapest and best 



for the use of each region For more detailed information, it is 



proposed that the various road commissioners send to the Survey 

 samples of such rocks and gravels in their immediate vicinities as are 

 believed to be valuable for road construction." 



A laboratory in connection with the Massachusetts Road Com- 

 mission has already been established at Harvard University. It is, 

 however, not thought advisable that each State should establish a 

 laboratory, for this would lead to much duplication of work, and after 

 a time little work would remain to be done. Moreover, "the results 

 obtained by divers observers and methods would lack the unity which 

 give [sic] a national value." An officer of the Survey will therefore be 

 detailed to take charge of the investigation of road-metal in the 

 Harvard laboratory, and the establishment of a national laboratory 

 will be brought to the attention of Congress, and a request made for 

 a suitable appropriation. 



As we firmly believe in the truth of the remark once made by a 

 wise man, that the status of a n^ition's civilisation may be estimated 

 by its facilities of communication within its own borders, so we 

 cordially approve of these ideas of the new Director of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, and hope that in his attack on Congress he will 

 meet with the success that his efforts deserve. 



A Geological Record. 

 Although, in its relation to the State, geology is active and 

 vigorous, yet it exhibits at present symptoms of neglect of a matter 

 vital to the progress of scientific work. Rumours are rife that 

 records of geological literature will soon be as dead as the Dodo, by 

 reason of the difficulty of getting supporters in sufficient numbers to 

 make such ventures pay. Talkers there are in plenty, and agitators 

 for Records of new kind and arrangement ; but few there be 

 sufficiently interested in such work to put their hand into their 

 pocket and keep a Record going. Dagincourt's " Annuaire " has 

 made a good fight, has filled a great gap, but it is not supported as it 

 should be. Blake's " Annals," too, dies from the non-support of 

 those who clamour for Records. But during all the births and 

 deaths of Records as individuals, there has yet been one that has 



