Editorial. 



The growing importance of economic geology finds a fitting expres- 

 sion in the establishment of a journal of high grade devoted especially 

 to its interests, under the editorial direction of John Duer Irving, with 

 Waldemar Lindgren, James Furman Kemp, Frederick Leslie Ran- 

 some, Heinrich Ries, Marius R. Campbell, and Charles Kenneth 

 Leith as associate editors — a staff that is at once a guarantee of the 

 new journal's high purposes and of its complete scientific control. 

 It takes the title Economic Geology, and is to be a semi-quarterly. 

 It pays this Journal the compliment, for which we bow our acknowl- 

 edgments, of taking a similar form as well as a like period of publica- 

 tion. It starts with an October- November number containing a very 

 attractive table of contents, consisting of "The Present Standing 

 of Applied Geology," by Frederick Leslie Ransome; "Secondary 

 Enrichment in Ore-Deposits of Copper," by James Furman Kemp; 

 "Hypothesis to Account for the Transformation of Vegetable Matter 

 into the Different Varieties of Coal," by Marius R. Campbell; "Ore- 

 Deposition and Deep Mining," by Waldemar Lindgren; " Genesis of 

 the Lake Superior Iron Ores," by Charles Kenneth Leith; and "The 

 Chemistry of Ore-Deposition — Precipitation of Copper by Natural 

 Silicates," by Eugene C. Sullivan; with an editorial by Irving, and 

 Discussions, Reviews, Recent Literature on Economic Geology, 

 Scientific Notes, and News. 



It will be noted that the initial papers, chiefly by members of the 

 editorial staff, treat of subjects of the higher order of importance, and 

 this may doubtless be taken to foreshadow future lines of editorial 

 endeavor. There is a notable tendency to strike at radical facts, or 

 at underlying principles and hypotheses — a welcome feature. No 

 less than in other fields of geology is there present need for radical 

 treatment of economic problems. This is true not more on the 

 economic side, in the narrow sense of the term, than on the scientific 

 and philosophic side. Probably the greatest contribution that can 

 now be made to applied geology is the development of the underlying 



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