GEOLOGY IN SERVICE OF MAN WATTS 275 



variation of coal seams, both in tlie vertical direction and when 

 traced over the wide areas of their extent. Elaborate and knowl- 

 edgeable samplinfz, followed by new means of testing, and these 

 again by new methods for recognition of varieties, have still to be 

 put into practice before it can be said that we are making a justi- 

 fiable and economic use of the capital reserves stored up in the rocks. 



OiJ^ — While we blame our forefathers for their destructive and 

 wasteful handling of the coal fields, it is ourselves and our own 

 generation that we must blame for serious waste of oil and the 

 destructive exploitation of oil fields that have been permitted. 

 There is no economic subject to which geology has so direct a relation 

 as the occurrence and exploration of oil fields, and nothing in recent 

 times has given so much employment and such valuable experience 

 to geologists all over the world. It is the only example we have 

 of the sudden introduction of a new source of fuel on a large scale 

 in a late stage of industrial development, and it has already 

 revolutionized many branches of engineering practice. The intro- 

 duction and spread of the internal combustion engine and all 

 that this implies in space econoni}^, cleanliness, labor-saving, and 

 comfort, has been the greatest engineering feature of the late 

 nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it has given rise to 

 systems and methods which mankind would be loath to abandon. 

 The whole world is being searched to prolong the good times that 

 we live in ; but in spite of the fact that there probably still remains 

 a recoverable percentage in the oil producing areas, and that there 

 must be new fields awaiting discovery, there are already signs that 

 the high oil mark has been reached if not passed. But, again 

 it is no small comfort that although our supply of native oil, easily 

 won and easily refined and applied, cannot last very much longer, 

 there are abundant supplies of oil shale still left, sufficient to take 

 its place for very many decades to come. 



Metals, etc. — Although the greater part of to-day's session is to 

 be taken up by papers and discussions on special sides of economic 

 geology by those who are far more competent than I to speak 

 on them, I can not resist the temptation to say a few words on that 

 side of the subject which touches on metal mining. There is 

 probably no subject which has been in the past more dominated 

 by the " practical man," who may be defined as the most theoretical 

 of all men, but whose theories are seldom proved and are often 

 not susceptible of proof. The valuable information that was ac- 

 cessible to him has been wasted because he could not use it to 

 the best advantage, or else it has been lost because he could or 

 Mould not impart it. On the other hand, the "theorist," as he 

 has been contemptuously named, has been hampered because he 



