RANSOME: NATIONAL GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 89 



car, telegraph, telephone, and electric light. Not only is the 

 utility of science not always predictable but it is of very different 

 kinds. That astronomy has certain practical applications in 

 navigation and geodesy is well known; but important as these 

 applications are they seem insignificant in comparison with the 

 debt that we owe to this science for enlarging our intellectual 

 horizon. This, too, is usefulness which I venture to think is of a 

 truer and higher sort than much that passes current for utility. 

 The classic researches of Pasteur on the tartaric acids, on fer- 

 mentation, on the anthrax bacillus, on the silkworm disease, 

 and on rabies, were so-called applied science of the very highest 

 type, indistinguishable in the spirit and method of their pursuit 

 from investigations in pure science. They were not merely the 

 application of knowledge to industry but were extraordinarily 

 fruitful scientific investigations undertaken to solve particular 

 industrial and humanitarian problems. They are especially 

 interesting in the present connection as probably the most con- 

 spicuous example in the history of research of the merging of 

 pure and applied science. Pasteur was doubly fortunate in that 

 he not only enormously enlarged human knowledge but was able 

 to see, at least in part, the practical application of his discoveries 

 to the benefit of humanity. The value of his results measurable 

 in dollars is enormous, yet this is not their only value. Professor 

 Arthur Schuster, in a recent address, remarks: "The researches 

 of Pasteur, Lister, and their followers, are triumphs of science 

 applied directly to the benefit of mankind ; but I fancy that their 

 hold on our imagination is mainly due to the new vista opened 

 out on the nature of disease, the marvelous workings of the 

 lower forms of life, and the almost human attributes of blood 

 corpuscles, which have been disclosed. 



"The effect on a community is only the summation of the effect 

 on individuals, and if we judge by individuals there can be little 

 doubt that, except under the stress of abnormal circumstances, 

 pure knowledge has as great a hold upon the public mind as the 

 story of its applications." 



Quite independently of any recognized usefulness, investiga- 

 tions that yield results that are of interest to the public are wil- 



