I08 RANSOME: NATlONAIv GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



tained by the organization. If such a survey is to attract to its 

 service men of first rate abihty and to hold these men after their 

 development and experience have made them of the highest value, 

 certain inducements must be offered. Salary is unfortunately 

 the first of these that comes to mind under conditions that 

 continually force the scientific men in government service to 

 recognize painfully how inadequate at present is the stipend 

 upon which he had existed before the war. It is all very well 

 to insist that the scientific man does not work for money and 

 should not trouble his thoughts with such an unworthy con- 

 sideration. Nevertheless if he is to do the best of which he is 

 capable he must be lifted above the grind of poverty, be able to 

 give his children those educational advantages that he can so 

 well appreciate, have opportunity for mental cultivation and 

 feel his social position to be such that he can mingle without 

 humiliation with his intellectual peers. If it is destructive to the 

 scientific spirit to set up material gain as an object it may be 

 equally blighting to scientific achievement to force the attention 

 continually downward to the problem of meager existence. 

 The normal scientific man usually has other human beings de- 

 pendent upon him and the traditional spirit of self-sacrifice 

 and the indifference to material reward that are commonly 

 attributed to the true investigator may, when these members of 

 his family are considered, come very close to selfishness. 



However, salary, important as it is, is by no means the only 

 determinant. If it is reasonably adequate, most men who are 

 animated by the spirit of science will find additional reward in 

 their work itseh if this is felt to be worthy of their best efforts. 

 A man of first rate scientific ability, however, will not enter an 

 organization in which consecutive application to a problem is 

 thwarted, in which he is expected to turn to this or that com- 

 paratively unimportant task as political expediency may dic- 

 tate or in which the general atmosphere is unfavorable to the 

 initiation and prosecution of research problems of any magnitude. 

 If a man of the type in mind finds himself in such an uncongenial 

 environment he is likely to go elsewhere. The final effect upon 

 the organization will be that its scientific staff will be mediocre 



