616 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 956 



more and more centered in things concerned 

 with mineral wealth ; surveys that formerly 

 had included natural history became re- 

 stricted to geology, and the geology was 

 often confined to economic studies, so that 

 more than one geologist found himself sub- 

 ject to censure because he wasted his time 

 on such supposedly worthless things as 

 fossils. However, there was a great diver- 

 sity among the states in the scope of the 

 work they tried to do; and some of them 

 published occasionally a volume on plants 

 and animals. One of the best of such pub- 

 lications is the botany of California, ap- 

 pearing in 1880, the work on which was 

 done by Brewer, Watson and Gray. Th:s 

 is a description of species with notes on 

 habitat and range ; but the most of the bot- 

 any and zoology of this period is mere lists 

 of species, as far as state surveys are con- 

 cerned. 



Special note should here be made of the 

 survey of New York, which is the only ex- 

 ample known to the writer that from the 

 first has continued its natural history 

 studies. 



It is evident from what has been said 

 that 30 years ago natural history had been 

 largely eliminated from state surveys. In 

 recent years, however, there seems to be a 

 slight tendency to replace this work in the 

 state survey. It is true that the number of 

 states adding natural history to their work 

 within the past quarter of a century has 

 been small, only the states of Connecticut, 

 "Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota; 

 but the surveys of New York, Illinois and 

 Minnesota have shown renewed activity in 

 natural history within this period, and the 

 activity of agencies outside of official state 

 surveys may be taken as an indication that 

 other states will soon be persuaded to re- 

 sume this work. These agencies include 

 universities, colleges or museums that are 

 doing some work without order from the 



state, like the state museums of New Jer- 

 sey and Louisiana; academies of science, 

 like those in Indiana, Illinois and other 

 states which have started surveys, some of 

 these academies having their work pub- 

 lished at state expense ; volunteer associa- 

 tions, like the Botanical Seminar of Ne- 

 braska and the recent association of uni- 

 versities and colleges of Ohio; and, finally, 

 individuals, like Pammel in Iowa, Hitch- 

 cock in Kansas, Nelson in Montana, Bray 

 in Texas and Kamaley in Colorado, who 

 contribute papers on the biogeography of 

 their respective states, sometimes as bulle- 

 tins of the institutions with which they are 

 connected, sometimes as reports of acad- 

 emies, sometimes as a gratuitous paper in 

 a geological survey. 



Though we maj^ feel encouragement over 

 the awakening of interest in natural his- 

 torj', the present condition of the survey 

 work in this subject in most of the states 

 must be regarded as very unsatisfactory. 

 Only 7 states are conducting continuous 

 and systematic natural history surveys, 

 and the most of the work done by outside 

 agencies is more or less haphazard and 

 sporadic. State academies seldom have 

 funds enough to plan any large undertaking, 

 and their future income is not sure enough 

 to allow the laying of plans for a series of 

 years. Men in colleges who may have 

 started surveys give up their positions, 

 and the work stops. Moreover, the scat- 

 tering of the reports of surveys through 

 several serials, official surveys, college bul- 

 letins, and academy reports, is not to be 

 commended. Suppose one should wish to 

 learn what had been published on the bo- 

 tanical survey of Ohio ; in how many dif- 

 ferent publications would he have to 

 search ? 



What is here said must not be inter- 

 preted as condemning state survey work 

 outside of the official surveys. I am not 



