RANSOME: NATIONAL GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 9 1 



outlined. It would give the people not perhaps what they think 

 they want but what, in the wisdom of their government, seems 

 best for them. I believe that a survey so directed would aim 

 to encourage and promote the study of geology by undertaking 

 those general problems and regional investigations that would 

 be likely to remain untouched if left to private enterprise. It 

 would lay the foundation for the most economic and efficient 

 development of the natural resources of the country by ascer- 

 taining and making known the location, character and extent 

 of the national mineral resources. As an aid to the intelligent 

 utilization of these resources, and to the discovery of deposits 

 additional to those already known, it would properly occupy 

 itself with problems concerning the origin and mode of formation 

 of mineral deposits. Last, but not least, it would accept the 

 responsibility, not only for making known the material resources 

 of the country but for contributing to the moral and intellectual 

 life of the nation and of the world by seeing to it that the country's 

 resources in opportunities for progress in the science of geology 

 are fully utilized. I may illustrate my meaning by examples 

 taken from the publications of the U. S. Geological Survey. In 

 my opinion such works as Button's Tertiary History oj the 

 Grand Canyon, Gilbert's Lake Bonneville, and the investiga- 

 tions of Marsh, Cope, and their successors, on the wonderful 

 series of reptile, bird, and mammal remains found in the Cre- 

 taceous and Tertiary strata of the west are fully as adequate 

 and appropriate a return for the expenditure of public funds as a 

 report describing the occurrence of a coal bed and giving the 

 quantity of coal available in a given field. Many years ago when 

 the United States Geological Survey was under heavy fire in 

 Congress one member of that body in some unexplained way 

 learned that Professor Marsh had discovered and had described 

 in a government publication a wonderful fossil bird with teeth — 

 a great diver up to 6 feet in length. He held this up to ridicule 

 as a glaring example of the waste of public funds in useless scien- 

 tific work, quite unaware of the light that this and similar dis- 

 coveries threw upon the interesting history of the development 



