October 18, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



501 



of the Survey has been approximately 

 3,000 per cent. The fact speaks for itself 

 without claiming for the geological organi- 

 zation all the credit for this tremendous 

 development. The approximate output of 

 minerals of all kinds for the year 1837, the 

 first year in which the Survey did actual 

 work, was two and one half millions; the 

 total mineral production for the year 1911 

 for materials within the state was thirty- 

 one and a half millions ; but including the 

 ores brought in from outside the production 

 is seventy-four and one half millions, 

 ranking New York state as the sixth state 

 of the union in the value of its total output. 

 The preeminence of Pennsylvania, Illinois, 

 Alabama, and "West Virginia is due to 

 their coal, that of California to its oil. As 

 a result of the careful surveys made within 

 the last few years the volumetric totals of 

 the iron ores still available for commerce 

 are shown to reach nearly one billion tons, 

 interesting as indices of the potential 

 natural wealth of a state which has no coal 

 and comparatively little oil. The scientific 

 foundation of this development is the 

 volume "Mineralogy of New York," by 

 Lewis C. Beck, published in 1842. 



The most recent instance of the inter- 

 relations between pure science and progress 

 is that developed by the need of the City 

 of New York for an increased water supply, 

 involving the second greatest engineering 

 task of modern times. When work on the 

 new aqueduct was actively undertaken ten 

 years ago, the chief engineer, J. Waldo 

 Smith, one of the broadest minded men of 

 his profession, realized that the geological 

 structure and the present and past history 

 of the region to be traversed entered in a 

 fundamental way into the problem. The 

 region embraces the Triassie and Archean 

 formations of the state from the Upper 

 Devonian downward, formations to which 

 the survey has devoted pure research since 



1836, formations folded, faulted, and meta- 

 morphosed in a most complicated manner. 

 The surface features are concealed every- 

 where with drift of the Glacial Epoch, 

 which at places like a thick mantle covers 

 buried channels or pre-glacial systems of 

 drainage which cut the bed rock to depths 

 much below the present level. At the 

 Storm King crossing of the Hudson the 

 rock bottom is 800 feet or more below the 

 surface of the river. With their thorough 

 understanding of these facts, the consult- 

 ing geologists Kemp, Crosby and Berkey 

 aided the engineers in selecting the best 

 locations and in forecasting the under- 

 ground geology for the preparation of 

 specifications for the contractors. Con- 

 versely the great tunnels and sections of 

 the engineer have laid bare new matters of 

 great value to the geologist; matters of 

 inference have become the recorded facts 

 of observation ; estimates have given way to 

 precise measurement in feet and inches. 

 All this experience, embracing so much of 

 human, scientific, and technical value, is 

 to be brought together in a volume by 

 Berkey and published with abundant pro- 

 files and illustrations in a bulletin of the 

 State Museum. 



The scientific growth of New York state 

 is the past, the present, and a forecast of 

 the future of our State Museum. The off- 

 spring has become the parent ; the museum 

 now conducts the geological and other sur- 

 veys of the state. From its slow birth 

 under the Natural History Survey between 

 1836 and 1843, under vicissitudes of name, 

 of scope, of direction, and of dwelling 

 place, the State Museum is now the titular 

 head of the survey and of the entire science 

 division under the New York State Educa- 

 tion Department. The paleontologic, geo- 

 logic, mineralogic, and botanic depart- 

 ments, independent oifshoots of the survey, 

 were brought under the regents of the uni- 



