536 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 617. 



The reference to fuel testing, however, can 

 hardly be taken as a real reason for your action, 

 because I explicitly stated in my letter of Febru- 

 ary 9 that I should have to depend upon the 

 U. S. Survey ' for such analyses and coking and 

 fuel tests as may be necessary for the work.' 



5. You seek to throw blame upon me for losses 

 caused by errors in a map. The map referred to 

 is given at page 390 of the twenty-second annual 

 report of the U. S. Geological Survey, Part III. 

 It is a sketch map on a scale of twelve and a half 

 miles to the inch. If such losses ever were in- 

 curred, it is the first case I have ever heard of in 

 which coal lands have been bought upon locations 

 taken from a map of so small a scale. 



6. The suggestion that the regular assistants 

 of the survey must have something to do in order 

 to earn their salaries might lead one to infer 

 that the great bulk of the geology of the United 

 States has been worked up and that nothing now 

 remained but a few areas here and there like the 

 coal fields of Arkansas. Knowing the opposite 

 to be the truth I am unable to see that it was 

 necessary to enter the territory of a colleague 

 against his will for the purpose of finding work 

 for the regular assistants of the survey. 



7. In spite of the fact that my work was done 

 eighteen years ago, and in spite of its not being 

 up to ' present standards ' you say that -you were 

 anxious to obtain it and that ' adequate payment 

 would have been made.' 



The reports of the Arkansas Geological Survey 

 not being my personal property I leave others to 

 characterize your proposition to pay me for one 

 of them. 



The above facts make it plain that the true ex- 

 planation of your course in this matter is not 

 frankly set forth in your three letters. The real 

 reasons must be sought elsewhere, and I know of 

 no place to look for them save in the general 

 policy of the U. S. Geological Survey as reflected 

 in its attitude toward the geologists of the coun- 

 try since the present director came into office. 



The attitude of the survey toward the geol- 

 ogists of the country has come to be simply intol- 

 erable. No geologist has any rights that the 

 survey feels bound to respect, unless indeed the 

 geologist has political backing that makes it 

 worth the survey's while to treat him with some 

 sort of consideration. 



If this treatment of myself and of my assistants 

 were the first instance of the kind there might be 

 some hope of the matter being set right; but 

 such is not the case. Not only are our fields 

 of operation unceremoniously invaded, but work 



is taken out of one man's hands to be put into 

 another's without any reason other than the 

 authority given by the power to do it, or through 

 some desire to favor one person rather than an- 

 other. If one asks for a reason he is grandilo- 

 quently referred to the general authorization to 

 ' map the national domain.' 



By this process not only are the rights of in- 

 dividuals encroached upon, but local interests are 

 overridden, state organizations are first dis- 

 credited and then driven out of existence, and 

 even the privacy of our educational institutions 

 is invaded and discredited in the eyes of the very 

 people for whom and by whom they have been 

 founded. In Arkansas the national survey grad- 

 ually invaded the field of the state survey until 

 now it would be impossible to induce the state 

 to carry on a geological survey of its own. If 

 members of the legislature were now asked to 

 provide for a state survey they would simply say 

 that such work was entirely unnecessary because 

 if it were wanted the national survey would do 

 it and work already done would be cited in sup- 

 port of the statement. By this process have the 

 state surveys, formerly the pride of the states, 

 been either completely wiped out or so enfeebled 

 that they only survive with the consent and ap- 

 proval of the national organization. Sometimes 

 this approval is under the form of 'cooperation' 

 by which the state appropriates money for the 

 use of the national survey. In some instances 

 the director of the U. S. Survey has even gone to 

 the extent of writing to members of state legisla- 

 tures and advising against the support of state 

 surveys unless it were done in a way to suit the 

 national organization. 



A single case of the discrediting of local geol- 

 ogists by the policy of the present director of 

 the survey is sufficient to show where every 

 teacher of geology in this country stands if the 

 survey sees fit to use its power to discredit him. 



A few years ago the national survey sent an 

 assistant to work up the geology of the Fayette- 

 ville folio in the state of Arkansas. Fayetteville 

 being the seat of the State University, the pro- 

 fessor of geology in that institution, in order to 

 save his face, was compelled to ask as a favor 

 that he be allowed to help, in a subordinate posi- 

 tion, to do the work on his own campus and in 

 his own door yard. And even though this con- 

 cession was finally made, he stood discredited as 

 a geologist before the people of the state, before 

 the trustees of the university, before his col- 

 leagues in the faculty, and before his own stu- 

 dents. For what were they to think of him as 



