EDITORIAL 
The transfer of the United States Geological Survey from one 
administration to another is a matter of wide interest at any time, 
and is perhaps more than usually so at the present stage of official 
evolution in this country. The latter part of the administration 
of Major Powell and all of that of Dr. Walcott were conditioned by 
attempts to develop the related interests of irrigation, forestry, and 
so forth, and no small part of the time and strength of these adminis- 
trations was given to enterprises very worthy in themselves, but not 
strictly geological. The Survey will have contributed much to the 
general good of the country by aiding in putting these related interests 
under scientific control, but, in the judgment of many geologists, 
the Survey itself has temporarily suffered in consequence, scientifi- 
cally and probably financially. In the closing stages of Dr. Wal- 
cott’s administration the chief of these annexations to the Survey 
were separated from it and the way prepared for a more strictly 
geological administration. Some further limitations may be whole- 
some, but the new administration under Dr. Smith inherits an excel- 
lent opportunity to show what can be done by an undivided devotion 
to the development of strictly geological work in the interest of 
industry, education, and science. 
Just at present the attention of the country is specially alert to 
the future relations of federal and state functions, and this adds 
piquancy to the problem of the relations of the national to the state 
surveys. It is a hopeful sign that steps have already been taken to 
adjust these relations in a more satisfactory way. More funda- 
mental than the formal relations of the national to the state surveys 
is the question of true interstate work with a view to general correla- 
tion and fundamental science, in contradistinction to essentially local 
work of an intra-state nature. 
Of similar import is the question of the relations of the national 
survey to the institutions which produce its working talent. Of like 
importance is the obligation of the Survey to develop the talent it 
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