C— GEOLOGY. 87 



ore deposit, after his discovery of it, lie found this old hole, and noted that 

 the prospector had failed to discover what later proved to be one of the 

 largest and richest deposits of manganese ore in the world — one that was 

 of great importance to the life of the British nation at a most critical period 

 of the Great War, when sufficient supplies of high-grade manganese ore 

 were unobtainable for the manufacture of efPective munitions. 



The other example is that of a prospector for gold, who had sunk a 

 shaft, over 40 feet deep, through bauxite. He used the shaft constantly 

 without knowing, until informed of that fact by the same geologist, that the 

 material he had excavated was bauxite. In both cases the want of 

 geological knowledge was the cause of the failure of the prospectors to 

 recognize what they had excavated. 



To Dr. E. 0. Teale, Tanganyika ; Dr. R. C. Wilson, Nigeria ; Major 

 N. R. Junner, M.C., Sierra Leone ; Dr. 6. W. Grabham, Sudan ; Mr. E. J. 

 Wayland, Uganda ; Dr. F. Dixey, C.B.E., Nyasaland ; Mr. J. B. Scrivenor, 

 Federated Malay States, Directors of the existing Geological Surveys of 

 Colonies and Protectorates, and to the Commissioner of Lands and 

 Mines, British Guiana, I am indebted for the useful information they have 

 kindly supplied regarding the operations of their Surveys. The value of 

 the contributions of their Surveys to the well-being and advancement of 

 their Colonies is evident from the results obtained. There is no doubt 

 that as work progresses in areas not yet explored and detailed surveys are 

 made in those already examined cursorily, many more valuable natural 

 resources will be discovered by them. 



My thanks are also tendered to Dr. C. A. Matley for the information 

 furnished regarding Jamaica, to Mr. L. B. Ower for that respecting British 

 Honduras, and to Mr. T. Crook, Principal of the Mineral Resources 

 Department of the Imperial Institute, for some of that relating to several 

 of the other Surveys. 



In this address an attempt has been made to show the value of 

 Geological Surveys to young countries, and the application of scientific 

 knowledge and methods, both theoretical and practical, to the discovery 

 of the valuable inorganic and organic resources of Nature, as opposed to 

 the search for them in a more or less haphazard manner. 



Though Geology has yielded much definite evidence of the genetic 

 relations, associations and occurrences of minerals in rocks and lodes, yet 

 discoveries from time to time have shown that some minerals have wider 

 associations than had been known previously. It becomes necessary, 

 therefore, to keep an open mind on many matters, to consider carefully 

 all the evidence available, and not to be dogmatic in opinions and con- 

 clusions. Geology is not an exact science — therein lies much of its 

 fascination — so, in the consideration of some of its aspects, uncertainty, 

 imagination, and speculation must be tempered with keen and correct 

 observation, sound reasoning and experience. Through the aeons of the 

 growth of our earth Nature has continuously added to the mineral secrets 

 in her vast realm. Some of these secrets she herself has unveiled to man 

 by her ceaseless variation ; others have been revealed by chance through 

 the activities of man and animal ; and still others through the application 

 of experience and science by man. To-day science plays the predominant 

 r61e in these revelations, and is steadily forcing a recognition of this fact 

 upon the peoples of the earth, for their common benefit. 



