348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



without the aid of science were so extensive that the time was hardly 

 ripe to make full use of this new geology. 



We have seen that the period following the Civil War was especially 

 favorable to the develoj^ment of applied geolog3^ The same is true 

 of pure science. This, in fact, has been the history of geology in this 

 country — advances in pure science were always in more or less direct 

 proportion to advances made in the applied science. 



It has been shown that, in the early history of the Nation, the 

 genius of the American people was essentially scientific. A deep 

 interest was felt both in the facts and deductions of science, and in the 

 affairs of life deference was paid to the opinion of the investigator. 

 Unfortunately, for reasons which are difficult to fathom, this scientific 

 attitude gradually declined. At the beginning of our national exist- 

 ence we were in close contact with the intellectual life of Europe, 

 which was then essentially scientific. This gave us our first intel- 

 lectual stimulus and led us to do our full share of the work of advanc- 

 ing both pure and applied science. Then came an interim between 

 the time when we forsook the intellectual standards of the Old World 

 and before we fully established those of our own. Meanwhile, the 

 opening of a continent, with its unbounded resources, was calculated 

 to bring out the characteristic efficiency and self-reliance of the aver- 

 age American. Then gradually developed what may be called the 

 era of the "practical man" — an era characterized essentially by 

 unscientific thought among the mass of the people. The "practical 

 man" now became a naticmal fetish, and the people, overlooking the 

 fact that his success was due to energy and opportunity, attributed it 

 rather to the absence of technical and scientific knowledge. Nowhere 

 was this national trait better shown than in the mineral industry, 

 where the era of the "practical man" cost the Nation untold millions. 

 His distrust of applied science was deep-rooted. For a generation 

 every mining community swarmed with these self-styled experts, 

 whose technical and scientific limitations were only exceeded by their 

 blatant self-assertion. 



Unfortunately, at tliis time there also developed between the 

 geologist and the mining engineer an antagonism wliich was detri- 

 mental to the advances of the science. A school of geology arose 

 wliich revived to a certain extent the ancient practice of specula- 

 tion without observation and regarded itself as moving in a liigher 

 intellectual sphere than that of the engineer, who dealt with practical 

 problems. On the other hand, many engineers came to regard all 

 work of the geologist as either visionary or purely speculative. 



Since the rise of the modern school of applied geology, wliich may 

 be said to have begun in the eighties, tins antagonism between the 

 engineer and the geologist has gradually disappeared. The geologist 

 has made liis results of more value by adopting some of the methods 



