rUESlDENTIAL ADDRESS. 37 9 



Britain is industrially mature as compared with these youthful communities, we 

 cannot doubt that in this special branch of geology, however splendid our 

 advances in others, we have been outstripped by our kinsmen abroad. 



To attempt an explanation of this comparative failure to apply effectively 

 the resources of geology to practical affairs would demand a critical analysis of 

 the whole position of science in relation to industry and education which is 

 being so vigorously debated by public men to-day. It is unquestionably due, 

 in no small measure, to our ignorance and neglect of, and consequent indiffer- 

 ence to, science in general, more especially on the part of our governing classes. 

 This war, with all its material waste and mental anguish, may bring at least 

 some compensation if it finally rouses us from complacence and teaches us to 

 utilise more fully the highly trained and specialised intelligence of the nation. 



The Geological Survey. 

 In any discussion of the pi'e.sent outlook of economic geology in Britain we 

 naturally'turn first to the work of the Geological Survey. When in 1835 the 

 National Survey was founded with De la Beche as its first Director, it was 

 clearly realised by the promoters that its great function was to develop the 

 mineral resources of the Kingdom, which involved the systematic mapping of the 

 rocks, and the collection, classification, and study of the minerals, rocks, and 

 fossils illustrative of British Geology. For upwards of eighty years this work, 

 launched by the enthusiasm and far-siglited genius of De la I5eche, has been 

 nobly sustained. We geologists outside the Survey are ever willing to testify to 

 the excellence, within the Treasury-prescribed limits, of the published maps and 

 memoirs. Indeed, it would be difficult to name a Government service in which 

 the officers as a body are more efficient or more enthusiastic in their work. 



We have ceased to hear rumours of Treasury misgivings as to whether the 

 Geological Survey can justify, on financial grounds, its continued existence. 

 Wren we call to mind the untold wealth of infoi'mation and fact in the published 

 maps, sections, and memoirs, the enormous value of such knowledge to mining, 

 civil engineering, agriculture, and education, and indirectly to the development 

 of th'e mineral resources of the whole Empire, and then reflect that the total 

 annual cost of the Geological Survey of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland 

 is somewhere near 20,000Z. — less, that is to say, than the salary and fees we have 

 been accustomed to pay every year to a single Law Oflftcer of the Crown — we 

 should find it difficult to bear patiently with any narrow or short-sighted 

 official view. 



But the time is opportune, I think, when we may ask wliether the Survey 

 is fulfilling all the functions that should be expected of it ; whether it is 

 adequately supported and financed by the Government ; whether it should not be 

 encouraged to develop along lines which, hitherto, from sheer poverty of official 

 support, have been found impracticable. 



It will be admitted that the re-mapping of the coalfields, which were 

 originally surveyed on the old 1-inch Ordnance Maps more than half a century 

 ago, before much of the mining information now available could be utilised, is 

 a primary duty and a pressing public necessity. But it would be a great mis- 

 take to allow other areas which have apparently little or no mineral wealth, 

 and are destitute, so far as we at present know, of any geological problem of 

 outstanding interest, like the problem of the Highland Schists, to remain, as at 

 present, practically unsurveyed. Take, for example, the great spread of Old 

 Red Sandstone in South Wales and the Border counties of England, which on 

 the present Government maps is indicated with a single wash of colour, and 

 here and there an outcrop of cornstone. It is true that the southern fringe of 

 this area has been recently surveyed in more detail in re-mapping the South 

 Wales Coalfield ; but there remain upwards of 2,000 square miles of Old Red 

 Sandstone unsurveyed. A map indicating merely the outcrop of the main 

 bands of sandstone, conglomerate, marl and limestone would be of great 

 assistance to engineers in such works as water-supply and sewage, as well as to 

 agriculture. I am aware that many other areas more clamorously demanding a 

 survey could be cited ; but I give this example because it happens that a few 

 months ago the Survey ]\Iaps of the area were found to be useless for tlic 



