Editorials. 



It has been announced that the Board of Directors of the 

 Geological Survey of Missouri have decided to publish only three 

 more reports, viz.: those on paleontology, on clays, and on lead 

 and zinc ; and " to abandon other work on reports on hand, whether 

 nearly completed or not," as well as to discontinue the survey 

 after June i, 1894. 



We hope that this report is entirely erroneous. If it is true, 

 however, those who have followed the history of the Geological 

 Survey of Missouri will hear the news with deep regret. The first 

 appropriation for the present survey was made by the legislature 

 in 1889, and in the fall of that year Mr. Arthur Winslow was 

 appointed State Geologist. Since that time the work of the sur- 

 vey has been rapidly and intelligently developed, and a number 

 of valuable reports have been issued. Though these reports 

 contain a great amount of information, there is vastly more yet 

 which should, and would, if unhindered, appear in later volumes. 

 In the work of a state geological survey the different subjects 

 discussed are not worked up entirely independently of each other, 

 but in the collection of data in the field on one subject, the geol- 

 ogist collects incidentally many facts relating to other subjects 

 which he expects to treat of at a subsequent time. As a result 

 of this, the amount of information on all points of scientific or 

 economic importance is steadily increasing in the office of the 

 state geological survey ; and every report that is published means 

 not only that the subject to which it relates has been thoroughly 

 investigated, but also that many facts relating to other matters of 

 general interest have been collected, and will, at some future 

 time, be supplemented by additional facts and form the basis of 

 other reports. 



^ When a survey has completed its work on most subjects and 

 has but little left to publish, its discontinuance, though it may be 



