330 



ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



other the general problems of geologic philosophy, and has shown 

 that both may yield results of the highest industrial importance. 

 As DaAdd Paige has expressed it: 



There indeed can be no antagonism between science and art, between theoretical 

 knowledge and its economic application. The practical expression of a truth can 

 never be divorced from its theoretic conception. 



If, in spite of what has been said, the two fields of science are to 

 be differentiated, applied geology may be defined as the science 

 which utilizes the methods and principles of pure geology to supply 

 the material needs of man. 



While the present tendency of geologic science toward the inves- 

 tigation of problems of everyday life is patent to all, yet it is desh- 



Fig. 1.— Geologic publications, State and Federal appropriations for geologic work, and 

 percentage of total number of states supporting geologic work for the years 1886 to 1909. 



able to express this tendency quantitatively. For this purpose 

 I have determined the percentage of geologic i)ublications issued 

 annually during the last quarter of a century devoted in part or 

 entirely to applied geology. The result of this analysis is graphically 

 presented in the diagram (fig. 1), in which the one curv^e represents 

 the total number of publications; another, those classed as bearing 

 upon applied geology. This diagram is based on an actual count, 

 judging by the titles, of the publications included in the annual 

 bibliography of North American geology. It is conceded, of course, 

 that a mere enumeration of titles is, at best, but a crude method, 

 which neither takes into account the extent of the individual pub- 



