200 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



tion among the many headquarters where it was urgently 

 needed. And had you seen the great mine explosions at Mes- 

 sines Ridge, the greatest of the entire war, and had asked where 

 the vast tunneling operations were, planned which made pos- 

 sible that remarkable series of nineteen volcanic eruptions, the 

 reply would have been, " In the offices of the Geological Sur- 

 vey in Jermyn Street, London." From every part of Britain's 

 far-flung battle front were threads running back to converge at 

 the offices of the Geological Survey. 



The most effective use of geology in warfare requires that 

 a competent geological staff shall be located in the active theater 

 of military operations, where it can quickly examine and con- 

 stantly supervise every geological problem which may arise. 

 Our British friends were alive to this truth, and established 

 at their General Headquarters in France a geologic corps, at- 

 tached for convenience to the section of the Chief Engineers. 

 The Chief Geologist was Lt. Col. T. Edgeworth David, the 

 distinguished Australian scientist who accompanied Shackle- 

 ton on one of the Antarctic expeditions; and associated with 

 him were Captain W. B. R. King of the British Geological 

 Survey, and several other assistants. Their office formed part 

 of the Headquarters establishment, but their active labors ex- 

 tended the full length of the British front in France and Bel- 

 gium. 



It would not be possible, even were it desirable, to present 

 in a single short chapter any adequate account of the variety 

 of geological services rendered by Col. David and his co-work- 

 ers. Suffice it then to mention the principal divisions into 

 which those services may conveniently be grouped, and to give 

 some examples under each. Let us turn first to the all-impor- 

 tant matter of locating underground mines, tunnels, and dug- 

 outs. It was fortunate that the British General Staff in- 

 cluded generals who held the opinion that geological study was 

 absolutely essential to the proper location of these under- 

 ground workings, and who were frank enough to express 

 their regret that geologists had not been employed from the 



