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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1154 



of the commercial interests of its commu- 

 nity, but such public arguments are now 

 superfluous. It is a primary impulse and 

 an almost elemental instinct in the state 

 to develop the commercial assets of its 

 rocks. The appeal is so direct, so simple, 

 so imperative that no state can afford to 

 ignore a well- directed official effort to in- 

 crease thus the general weU-being and com- 

 fort of the commonwealth. The broad 

 proposition is not debatable; the proposi- 

 tion in detail has always been debatable 

 and debated. Too often and too much in 

 representative public opinion is the exist- 

 ence of the official geological organization 

 justified by certain perfectly obvious con- 

 siderations which subtend a large angle in 

 the public consciousness. Gold and silver, 

 iron and coal, petroleum, and natural gas, 

 and terms like these are made too often to 

 set forth a reasonable vindication of official 

 geology. But you and I may well insist 

 that such factors as these reckoned in terms 

 of the wealth of the state are not the justi- 

 fication of official geological research. We 

 may as well draw back the veil — private 

 enterprise will pretty effectively take care 

 of such things as these without much help 

 from us. Against such factors which we 

 may term the obvious sources of wealth 

 must be weighed the more recondite prod- 

 ucts which have seldom entered into the 

 estimate of the lawmaking body or the 

 public knowledge. 



It is in these that many of our states are 

 richest, not in those obvious factors. In a 

 state like this, which I cite not for com- 

 parison, but for illustration, the unesploited 

 iron ore would seem to be well over a billion 

 tons, while the actual value of the annual 

 product of iron is not more than one tenth 

 that of the annual output from thirty or 

 more different mineral products. And we 

 can not even begin to estimate for our state 

 the vast reserves in products' undeveloped 



or conceive the now unknown applications 

 to industry and the arts which our com- 

 monest geological compounds are compe- 

 tent to supply in response to the demands 

 of the state. 



I can see in such a state or in a union of 

 states and governments such as ours, the 

 demand for every human need, to-day 

 actual and to-morrow possible, which is in 

 any way dependent on the rocks of the 

 earth, fully met here without reliance on 

 any outside source. And it is of eminent 

 importance that the state take counsel with 

 itself to magnify such independence, at the 

 sacrifice of its commercial ease, for depend- 

 ence in -com m erce means no less than does 

 dependence in the scheme of nature, that 

 is, degeneration of stagnation. 



I counsel, therefore, you who are official 

 servants of the state, to urge, within your 

 power, upon the state this primary obliga- 

 tion; to take from no other what it can 

 itself as well produce from its own stores. 

 Insist, as the right is in you, that the state 

 shall take account of the knowledge you 

 possess for the full but conservative devel- 

 opment of its oivn resources, and neglect 

 no occasion to enforce the claims of the man 

 who knows best, to precedence in these 

 councils of the states. 



I would not seem to profane my high 

 office by stating in this presence the ele- 

 mental conceptions of the science, but it is 

 most imperative that I here, and you else- 

 where, shall be lucid, exact and compre- 

 hensive in setting forth its claims, namely 

 and briefly: that there is no substantial 

 conception of property apart from the 

 products of the rocks, the soils, the mines, 

 the water, the air — and these in aU their 

 functions are geological factors; that there 

 is no correct understanding of the meaning 

 of human life, individually or in its com- 

 plex community relations, if we stand with 

 our back to the great panorama of events 



