268 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 8 



Sanitation. — Closely related to the question of water supply is that 

 of sanitation and the disposal of sewage and other wastes. If proper 

 regard is not paid to geologic conditions, water supplies otherwise 

 suitable may become contaminated. In some limestone regions where 

 underground channels have been enlarged by solution, water may pass 

 quickly from sources of contamination to places of use without being 

 filtered or purified as they might be by passing through sequences of 

 rocks of normal porosity. Thus the geologist's advice may be valuable 

 to the sanitary engineer. 



Legal questions. — Matters in litigation not infrequently hinge on 

 geologic data. The mining industry has been afflicted by litigation 

 in connection with the so-called "apex" law. Many distinguished 

 geologists have participated in these affairs. Frequently the available 

 data have been so incomplete as to allow many differences of opinion 

 among the experts. Boundary disputes between States or individuals, 

 where the position of a stream is involved, have frequently hinged on 

 geologic evidence, as in the case of the Texas-Oklahoma boundary 

 along the Red River some years ago. 



Informational and miscellaneous services. — All the State geological 

 surveys, as well as the Federal Geological Survey, are constantly called 

 upon for a wide variety of information. Letters received at the 

 Geological Survey from people in all walks of life run up into the 

 thousands annually. Many mineral specimens are identified for the 

 public. Work of this kind, including personal interviews, has to be 

 considered a regular function of the geologist in public service. Some- 

 times the relation of geology to the question raised may at first seem 

 remote, but the answer may reveal an intimate connection. For 

 example, a representative of the United States Fish Commission called 

 at my office one day. He was trying to restock with fish some of the 

 streams in West Virginia. Though he was generally successful, there 

 was one area where the young fish, when released, kept dying and he 

 was not able to obtain satisfactory results. By referring to the county 

 geologic map, a product of the State survey, it was found that the 

 streams that caused the trouble all rose in or crossed a belt of pyrite- 

 bearing shales, and it seemed probable that the unfavorable effects 

 on the young fish were produced by sulphuric acid released by the 

 decomposition and leaching of the pyrite in these shales, and its con- 

 tinual supply to the streams through springs or mine waters in minute 

 quantities but sufficient to kill the fish. 



Another West Virginia problem was brought to my office by an 

 engineer from a telephone company that was having trouble in main- 

 taining its lines. The company, it appeared, had laid these out with 

 regard only to directions of route and mileage. It had not considered 

 the nature of the ground in which its poles must be set. As a conse- 

 quence disturbance of poles, disarrangement of line, and breakage of 



