,«^. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 645 



hope that the recent emphatic contradiction to the statement of the 

 Secretary of the Interior impHes no alteration in the recognition of 

 the necessity of a State Survey, but only doubts as to the efficiency 

 of the present Administration. 



A national Geological Survey is of course merely supported as a 

 commercial investment ; there are no State-supported botanical or 

 zoological surveys, except in so far as forestry and fishery boards may 

 be regarded as such. A nation is, therefore, justified in asking, not 

 how far questions of abstract speculation have been advanced, but as 

 to what progress has been made in the preparation of the maps, for 

 upon these so largely depends the economical working of mines, the 

 development of mineral wealth of newly-settled districts, the deter- 

 mination of the most profitable routes for roads and railways, and the 

 establishment of the best water supply. It is generally recognised, 

 at least on this side of the Atlantic, that the fundamental duty of a 

 Survey is to survey, and that the progress in mapping is the best 

 guide by which those responsible for the expenditure of the public 

 fundscan determine whether the nation is getting the best return for its 

 money. Judged by this standard, even the most friendly critic of the 

 United States Geological Survey must admit that it has not done as 

 much as might have been expected. Many most valuable maps have 

 been issued on special subjects, such as those in the Atlases to 

 Emmons' monograph on " The Ore-Deposits of Leadville," to 

 Button's "Canon of the Colorado," and to Hayden's Rocky Mountain 

 Survey, and also the smaller ones scattered through separate mono- 

 graphs, such as in Gilbert's Henry Mts. and Lake Bonneville. Of 

 the general map, however, only one sheet appears to have been 

 issued. This covers the very limited District of Columbia, and it is 

 very doubtful if the scale of coloration could be widely applied. The 

 illustrations which accompany the publications have been more 

 successful, and these are unsurpassed for their educational value and 

 excellence of execution. One cannot, however, but feel that they 

 have sometimes been extravagantly used for subjects of only secondary 

 geological interest. While we have been left uninformed on many 

 points of great interest, such as the Snake River lava flows, we have 

 received such a plethora of illustrations of Pleistocene scenery and 

 Dismal Swamps, that one has been tempted to exclaim, " This is 

 magnificent, but it is not geology." 



The Ethnographical branch of the U.S. Survey has also absorbed 

 a rather large share of attention. It is no doubt very pleasing to 

 read the story of " How the black rabbit caught the sun," not only in 

 English but in Cehina ; but it strikes the ordinary Briton as rather a 

 curious arrangement for ponderous monographs on the Cehina 

 language to be issued by a Geological Survey, for the language is not 

 even extinct yet. The charge has recently been made against the 

 present Director of the Survey that he has systematically favoured the 

 work of the Ethnological branch, in which he is most interested, at 



