A CENTURY OP GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 157 



stances where work had ah'eady been begun. Everybody took it for granted 

 that because Ohio had great reservoirs of subterraneous gas, Indiana also 

 possessed them, whereas it is true that of wells bored but a short distance 

 apart, even in the best areas of the Ohio gas region, some are successful while 

 others are utter failures." 



While the report was in press gas was struck in Indiana at Eaton, Dela- 

 ware County, and Kokomo, Howard County, and the paper ends with sec- 

 tions of each well and remarks on the character of the Indiana gas. It also 

 includes a section of the well 2,730 feet in depth put down in the court house 

 yard at Bloomington, Indiana, in search of artesian water. 



With the completion of his second report in December, 1888, Maurice 

 Thompson, "on account of continued bad health was compelled to resign as 

 State Geologist," and S. S. Gorby was appointed to fill the vacancy. He edited 

 the report of Thompson, which did not appear until the latter part of 1889. 

 It was accompanied by a colored geological map of the State, based upon the 

 one issued by CoUett but showing the various supposed natural gas areas of 

 the State. 



Second Report of Thompson. 



The volume begins with the usual introductory chapter, in which Thomp- 

 son mentions that the State Museum had been "transferred to its present 

 rooms in the State House and all the specimens of the vast collection relabeled, 

 rearranged and reset in the new eases." He then adds the following paragraph : 

 "The notion that the chief end of geological study is to collect fossils and clas- 

 sify them should be driven from the mind of every student. Paleontology 

 has its place of practical utihty as a sign language by which the rocks impart 

 their secrets to us, and through which we may reach the significance of things 

 otherwise meaningless; but, on the whole, the discovery of a ledge of good 

 building stone is more to be prized than a mine of crinoids or a hill full of 

 trilobites, pentramites and the rest. The discovery of the potato was of more 

 value to mankind than all the works of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and Agassiz 

 combined. Nor is this belittling these great men. It simply means that 

 though one should make plain as day the origin of life it would be as nothing 

 compared with a discovery of cheaper food for the poor and shorter hours 

 of labor for the toilers. Abstract study is for the man and woman of leisure; 

 the concrete is for the busy, earnest worker. The greatest good to the greatest 

 number is a maxim which would force the report of a State Geologist into a 

 practical channel ; still the larger part of the literature of even popular science 

 must deal with the technical rather than with the untechnical, and we must 

 depend upon the intelligence of the people to enforce a system of education 

 which shall set the popular thought on a level with enhghtened investigation. 

 It is by such means that civilization is broadened and bettered year by year." 

 We see from this statement that Thompson's views were sound as to the 



