40 BULLETIN 109, UNITED STATES NATIONAI. MUSEUM. 



erous not merely in California but in the whole region west of the 

 one hundred and sixteenth meridian. 



Tlie topographic work of this survey, under the direction of Hoff- 

 mann, has been claimed verbally b}' Prof. W. H. Brewer to have 

 been considerably in advance of any heretofore undertaken. He 

 introduced a system of rough triangulation well adapted to the needs 

 of the survey, but his contours were indicated by hachures. 



As to the exact cause of the failure of the survey under Whitney 

 opinions may differ. It was a by no means unusual fate in the his- 

 tor}^ of State surveys, and reasons of one kind and another are easy 

 to find. Taken all in all that given by Dr. Rossitcr W. Eaymond* 

 seems in the light of present knowledge to best fit the case : 



It Imppened that, when a question of a further appropriation was pending, 

 the only report which had been issued by the survey (Whitney's) was a volume 

 on paleontology; and an opponent of the appropriation carried the house with 

 him by simply reading random extracts from that dry and technical treatise, 

 as samples of the character of the work vi'hich had been done at the public 

 expense up to that time. TIu> appropriation was refused, and the valuable work 

 of Bowman and others, on the old river channels of California and their gold- 

 bearing gravels and cements, was thereby barred from publication for several 

 .years. For this result Prof. J. D. Whitney, the distinguished head of the sur- 

 vey, has often been blamed, on the ground that he expended money and time in 

 a preliminary topographical and geological survey without attacking problems 

 of immediate industrial interest. Personally I think there is some foundation 

 for this criticism. Professor Whitney, with a lofty and serene regard for the 

 logical sequence of science, and an equal disregard for the clamor of industrial 

 interests, had begun his work with the topographical reconnoissance necessary 

 as a basis for accurate geological deductions and correlations: and, in the 

 course of this preliminary labor, his field parties had made incidentally many 

 interesting paleontological observations, undoubtedly significant in their bear- 

 ing upon the geology of the State. Professor Whitney had also started inves- 

 tigations of more immediate and evident practical importance, but unfortun- 

 ately, in his plan of a permanent and monumental scientific achievement, these 

 were not of prime importance and were advancing slowly. Probably the 

 thought never occurred to him that it would make any difference what he 

 published first as the fruit of his work for the State, and thus he made the 

 profound mistake in policy of issuing, merely because it was ready, a learned 

 book on palaeontology for the benefit of a limited outside public of specialists, 

 and to the profound dissatisfaction of the people who had paid him and were, 

 reasonably or unreasonably, expecting something else for their money. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF A STATE MINING BUREAU, 1880-1900. 



By an act of the legislature, approved April 16, 1880, there was 

 created a State mining bureau and in conjunction therewith the 

 office of State mineralogist. The wording of the act was as follows : 



> In a footnote to a BiograpJiical Sketch of J. D. Hague, Bull. No. 26, Amer. Inst. MIn. 

 Engs., 1900. p. 113. 



