Se ee 
C.—GEOLOGY. 93 
mines long ago, and in certain cases their very bones picked clean, and the 
country has been left in such a condition that its original state can only 
be guessed at, and problems of relationship, structure, and origin are 
past solution. Consequently it is in the countries which have not been 
inhabited by successive races of highly civilised peoples, or in relation to 
substances for which there was in the past little or no demand, that the 
subject has been susceptible of real advance. 
Thus it is that such strides in mining geology have been made in 
Canada, the United States, India, South Africa, and Australia, where 
there has been a fair field to work upon, and where preliminary surveys 
have opened up the country and given an idea of its hidden resources. In 
no other areas of the world has the work of official surveys been watched 
more carefully by men of capital and enterprise, and money has rarely 
been lacking for development where there seem to be prospects of a fair 
return for it. Fortunately, too, the training of official geological surveyors 
has provided a type of geologist exceptionally well fitted both to prospect 
independently and to follow out in minute detail, and from a different 
view-point, the preliminary and less detailed examination which is all 
that is practicable in an official survey. These men have: carried with 
them not merely competence and enthusiasm, but a thorough belief in 
scientific principles, an extensive knowledge of border-line sciences, and 
the ability to apply both principles and methods to the problems involved. 
In the hands of such men the surest guides are scientific principles, just 
as in the hands of those with ‘a little learning’ imperfectly understood 
ptinciples are most dangerous ; and as the search for ores becomes keener, 
and as deposits smaller and more tenuous become worth working, the 
need for increased knowledge of principle and for minute detail in observa- 
tion steadily grows. 
Fortunately, we have not yet exhausted the existing stores of highly 
concentrated and singularly pure ores, salines, refractories, &c., and the 
need is less acute than it will eventually become for much-improved 
methods of concentration and purification. When we feel the pinch it 
will be necessary to call upon the chemist to endeavour to make available 
the abundant supplies of less pure and less concentrated materials which 
will remain over for our successors when we have picked out the best. 
This has already been to some extent effected for oil and it is beginning 
for coal; it must eventually be done for the still less pure sources of these 
two substances, for less concentrated ores and the like. 
Stone, &c.—The geologist has already done much in the investigation 
of the qualities of building-stones, plastic substances, and the materials 
for roofing and cement. To a large extent the materials in use are 
satisfactory in the air and surroundings in which they occur in Nature. 
But the added problems of a town atmosphere, accompanied by increased 
stresses in large buildings and the modern demands of the architect and 
sculptor, have still to be met, if our buildings are to be more permanent 
and our towns to present a less weather-beaten aspect than they now do. 
New and reliable means of testing are required, and we need a more 
thorough understanding of the reactions produced by impure atmospheres, 
and the effects of the”presence or absence of protective or destructive 
organisms. Future investigation will react in the production of more 
satisfactory preservatives, and it may lead to increased production and 
