OCTOBEB 26, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



535 



unless I turned over the data collected by me and 

 by my assistants my ' material will be of little 

 value, and there will be no hope of future publica- 

 tion.' In the meanwhile I have made every rea- 

 sonable effort to get your point of view, to put 

 myself in your place, and to find some excuse 

 for a course of action on the part of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey that, on the face of it, seems 

 «o unjust, especially as it discredits me not only 

 in the eyes of my colleagues but in the estimation 

 of the people of the state of Arkansas whom I 

 Jiave faithfully tried to serve. 



To my great regret not only am I unable to 

 find any just reason for your action in this case, 

 but the more I have informed myself regarding 

 the attitude of the survey toward individual 

 workers in geology throughout the country the 

 more have I been convinced that I can not remain 

 a member of that organization. 



Justice to myself requires that I say a word 

 regarding the reasons for your course put for- 

 ward in your letter of March 8. These reasons 

 appear to be: 



1. The field-work on the Arkansas coal region 

 was done eighteen years ago. 



2. It was based upon poor maps. 



3. The work is not ' up to present standards,' 

 and therefore could not be accepted for publica- 

 tion by the survey. 



4. New uses for the coals have been found by 

 the fuel-testing plant of the survey. 



5. Losses have been caused by errors in a map 

 of the Arkansas coal fields for which I am re- 

 sponsible. 



6. The salaries of the regular assistants of the 

 survey being provided for work must be given 

 them. 



7. You say : ' I was anxious to obtain your un- 

 published data, for which adequate payment would 

 have been made and full credit given.' 



Inasmuch as these are put forward as the real 

 reasons for the survey's action in this case I beg 

 to call to your attention the following facts: 



1. It is fully recognized that the work was 

 done so long ago that it needed to be brought up 

 to date. Many new mines have been opened and 

 much information is now available that was not 

 available when the original work was done. But 

 having originated and directed the survey of the 

 Arkansas coal fields I hold that it was altogether 

 reasonable that I should be allowed to bring the 

 report up to date, and if it needed correcting that 

 J should be permitted to correct it. 



2. As for poor maps let me remind you that 

 when my work was begun in the Arkansas coal 



fields the maps of that region made by the U. S. 

 Geological Survey were so poor that they were 

 absolutely useless. The topography was shown 

 with contour intervals of fifty feet, an interval 

 so large that the characteristic features of the 

 country were lost sight of, the land lines were 

 not put on them at all, and the work had all the 

 ear-marks of haste and indifference to the needs 

 of the people. I was, therefore, obliged to remap 

 the region on a scale of a mile to the inch with 

 twenty-foot contour intervals. The maps made 

 under my direction were based upon the land- 

 office plats, and were necessarily cheap maps. 

 But they were so much better than those made 

 by the U. S. Geological Survey that the survey en- 

 graved them for me, and owns the original plates. 

 If you have any doubt about the truth of these 

 statements you only need compare the Fort Smith 

 sheet of the U. S. Survey made in 1887 with 

 the sheets of the same region made afterwards 

 under my direction and engraved by the U. S. 

 Survey. Under the circumstances reference to 

 poor maps comes with bad grace from the direc- 

 tor of the U. S. Geological Survey. The main 

 weakness of the poor map excuse, however, is 

 that nothing was said in our correspondence re- 

 garding topographic work. It was taken for 

 granted that if the topographt/ needed revision it 

 could be revised for me as well as for some one 

 else. 



3. One would suppose that the statement that 

 the work is not up to present standards was 

 based upon some sort of knowledge of the report. 

 As a matter of fact neither you nor any of your 

 assistants have read the report, and you can not, 

 therefore, know anji;hing about its relation to 

 standards of any kind. Moreover, even without 

 reading it, the U. S. Geological Survey offered to 

 publish this same report in January, 1902, on 

 condition that I should consent to the publication 

 of the maps on a scale so small as to make them 

 useless to the people of Arkansas. One might 

 suppose that it was up to standard in 1902 but 

 had degenerated by 1906. 



4. Referring to the new uses found for 

 Arkansas coals by the fuel testing laboratory of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey, let me remind you 

 that I had fuel tests made of the Arkansas coals 

 in 18S8, long before the U. 8. Survey began the 

 investigation of the fuel values of the coals of any 

 part of this country. The results of these tests 

 are given in the preliminary report on Arkansas 

 coals, pages 67 to 79, published at Little Rock 

 in 1888, and it was expected that the final re- 

 port would contain much additional data. 



