EDITORIAL 185 
Under the civil polity of the United States, certain functions 
which relate to the welfare of the whole nation are assigned to the 
national government, while other functions of more circumscribed 
bearings are reserved to the states. ‘The principles which underlie 
this polity are as applicable to the scientific functions of the govern- 
ment as to any other. Those inquiries which bear upon the common 
welfare, irrespective of state limits, fall within the sphere of the 
national investigative organizations; those which relate to local 
interests belong to the province of the state scientific organizations, 
or to those instituted by municipal or other sub-state governments. 
It is obviously easier to state this basis of division than to apply it; 
for few scientific inquiries are so local as not to benefit the whole 
nation, directly or indirectly, and few are so general that they 
do not affect the welfare of the people of one state more than those of 
others. 
None the less, if these general principles are clearly apprehended 
and kept steadily in mind, a working system in reasonable accord 
with them can be established and maintained in the scientific field, 
as it has been for more than a century in the political. It is clear 
that those problems which are embodied in the phenomena of more 
than one state in such a way that the investigations necessary for 
their solution must be pursued in neglect of state lines, fall within 
the functions of the national organization; while those which lie 
wholly within state limits, and do not bear trenchantly on any funda- 
mental or general problem, as clearly fall within the functions reserved 
to the states respectively. Into the one or the other of these two 
great classes fall no small part of the geological problems of the 
domain belonging jointly to the nation and the states, and these may 
be easily distinguished in practice. Until we change our system of 
government, the national survey should not undertake the latter class 
of problems, nor the states the former. The intermediate class of 
problems, not so clearly defined, are to be compassed by co-operation 
and mutual agreement. 
If these considerations are true and just, it is clear that every state 
has a scientific function to perform; for no state government is true 
to the interests of its people, in this stage of human evolution, that 
does not care for the intellectual as well as the political welfare of its 
