45 



rest assured of positions being open to them, the vital question 

 remains as to the work to be done. To some extent, in geology, 

 pioneer conditions have passed. In our portion of the world 

 geologic maoping on some scale has very generally been done. 

 In much of Canada, in Alaska, in parts of Mexico and in most 

 of South America pioneer conditions, as regards geology, still 

 prevail. Very little of either Africa or Asia has been carefully 

 studied so that as regards systematic work alone the bulk of 

 our task is still before us. If also we measure the work from the 

 point of view of development of ideas, the task is even more 

 attractive. Geology has heretofore been mainly in the qualitative 

 state. Its workers have been busy developing the processes in- 

 volved and have had only the crudest means of elimination when 

 it was necessary to test one hypothesis against another. As Van 

 Hise has pointed out, we have now at least entered into the 

 quantitative stage, and this means nothing less than the reduction 

 to an orderly basis of the accumulated observations of all the 

 years past. As we accomplisli this we shall change our science 

 from an inexact one of hypothesis to an exact one of law ; and 

 v.'e shall then stand on an equal basis as regards certainty with 

 our associates of the physical and mathematical sciences. This is 

 certainly a field large enough and important enough to attract the 

 best energies of any man or woman. If our academy shall help 

 to put the right man in touch with his problem and the means 

 c>f solving it, we shall quickly justify its existence. 



