226 
of one who is expert only in his own special 
field or of one who has no expert knowledge of 
any branch. In the first case, the outcome 
would be what is seen in so many other gov- 
ernmental departments already: the subordi- 
nation of able and competent men to an official 
without the ability to direct and who is made 
an official superior over men, each in his own 
department, without superior. In the second 
alternative case, the Secretary of the Navy, 
usually a man without any expert knowledge 
of the technical work of the service, will have, 
interposed between himself and the men who 
are competent to advise him, each in his own 
province, an officer equally incompetent with 
the Secretary himself—with the added and fatal 
disadvantage of giving to the new incompetent, 
authority over men technically educated and 
fully competent. 
The vital principle that every important 
business should be conducted by an expert in 
that business is, in this case, ignored. Lither 
course would, in the opinion of those most com- 
petent to judge, insure inefficiency in the opera- 
tion of the naval service, of that arm on which 
the nation most relies to defend its honor and 
its rights in conflict with a foreign foe.. But 
the most dangerous of foes is the amateur, in 
the position of an expert, controlling an im- 
portant branch of public service. 
The ‘ Personnel Bill,’ passed by Congress as 
an emergency measure during the excitement 
attending the outbreak of the war with Spain, 
_and which consolidates the whole Naval Engi- 
neer Corps with the Line of the Navy, seems 
to have worked a mischief in a similar manner. 
Amateur talent is entrusted with duties and 
responsibilities which can only be safely as- 
signed to experts of high scientific education, 
thorough professional training and ample ex- 
perience. The members of the old Engineer 
Corps are dying off and the whole business of 
engineering is nominally becoming shifted into 
the hands of line-officers without other than 
amateur knowledge of the business, and with 
obvious danger to the whole naval service. 
Either the law is defective or it is not found 
practicable to secure its intended results; but, 
whichever may be the fact, the important out- 
come is danger of sacrifice of the vital interests 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8S. Von. XIII. No. 319. 
of the Navy to amateur incompetence. Nor is 
there the excuse in lack of knowledge of the 
danger, in advance. Every report of the 
chiefs of bureau of earlier years, for a gen- 
eration past, has included a warning, often 
earnest and impressive, of this coming danger ; 
while, throughout the whole period, the steady 
reduction of the numbers of officers in this 
most vitally important of all divisions of the 
modern naval personnel has been progressing, 
and the dangerous change has been advancing 
toward a crisis, despite the constant warnings, 
not only of all chiefs of bureau, but of sub- 
stantially all old members of the wrecked corps. 
The constant danger to the Naval Observa- 
tory and its personnel through amateurism has 
been as constant a subject of protest, in the 
same manner and with no better result; but 
this introduction of amateurism into the sea- 
going navy is even more serious and is certain 
to result in more serious disaster. 
R. H. THURSTON. 
A Record of the Geology of Texas for the Decade 
ending December 31, 1896. By FREDERIC 
W. Stmonpbs, Ph.D., Professor of Geology in 
the University of Texas—Transactions Texas 
Academy of Science for 1899, Vol. 3, Austin, 
Texas, October, 1900. 
This work is deserving of more than passing 
notice for Professor Simonds has not only given 
a most painstaking and complete bibliography 
of the geology of the Texas region, but as truly 
expressed in the title a record of the same. 
Each of the 466 works noted is accompanied by 
an intelligent abstract or synopsis, so that this 
book becomes of greatest value to any one wish- 
ing to ascertain information concerning the 
Texas region for the decade ending with the 
year 1896. The task of compiling such a work 
at Austin, so remote from good library facilities, 
must have been enormous, and is a credit to 
Professor Simonds, the Texas Academy of Sci- 
ence and the University of Texas. 
It is gratifying also to note that this work is 
but one of the recent manifestations of the 
quickened and improved condition of the Uni- 
versity of Texas. Within the past ten years this 
institution hasbeen gradually acquiring a faculty 
of progressive and able men and has made 
