724 



SCIENCE. 



rN. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 623. 



ness in publication would be impossible. The 

 clay report above mentioned was paid for on 

 July 9, 1901. The manuscript was received, 

 after several urgent requests, at the end of 

 March, 1904. The manuscript for the Santa 

 Cruz folio was promised for July, 1903. It 

 was received March 17, 1906. 



2. An examination of your preliminary coal 

 report published by the Arkansas Survey, to- 

 gether with the map furnished Mr. Taff for 

 publication in the Twenty-second Annual, in 

 the light of subsequent work on the coal meas- 

 ures in the region immediately adjacent in 

 Indian Territory, led the geologists familiar 

 with the matter to the conclusion that you 

 had made serious errors in correlation and in 

 the interpretation of structure in the Arkansas 

 field. It was believed that these errors might 

 very easily be perpetuated if the resurvey of 

 the field should be made by yourself — that you 

 would be handicapped by your belief in the 

 correctness of your former conclusions, and 

 hence that better results would be secured if 

 the work were done by some one entirely free 

 from preconceptions as to stratigraphy and 

 structure. 



3. During the last ten years much attention 

 has been paid by this survey to the examina- 

 tion of coal fields in various parts of the coun- 

 try. A body of experts has been developed 

 whose experience is probably not anywhere 

 surpassed. On the other hand, so far as I 

 am aware, you have, since leaving Arkansas, 

 devoted little if any attention to the investi- 

 gation of coal fields ; also those whom you 

 would probably secure for assistants in the 

 work, with the possible exception of Dr. New- 

 som, would have had little if any experience 

 in this kind of work. In this age of special- 

 ization it will, I think be conceded by all that 

 even the examination of a coal field can be 

 done more eiSciently by coal experts than by 

 those whose training has been in other lines of 



Concerning the last three pages of your let- 

 ter I shall make very brief comment. The 

 relations of this survey with existing state 

 surveys are uniformly cordial. Every effort 

 is made to strengthen state surveys and to 



cooperate with them in such a way as to render 

 their usually limited resources most productive 

 of good to the people of the state. Coopera- 

 tion is never forced upon a state organization, 

 and extreme care is exercised to prevent dupli- 

 cation by this survey of any work being car- 

 ried on by any state organization. As to the 

 invasion of fields occupied by professors of geol- 

 ogy, there are in the files of the survey many 

 letters to such professors urging them to work 

 up the local geology and offering financial as- 

 sistance and means of publication of their 

 results. The case of the Eayetteville quad- 

 rangle is perhaps an apparent exception. It 

 should be stated, however, that when the work 

 was undertaken there Professor Purdue was 

 practically unknown as a geologist and was, 

 as a matter of fact, not sufficiently experienced 

 to carry on independent work. Since his 

 season with Adams he has been employed each 

 summer and has submitted three folios for 

 publication. It has been necessary, however, 

 in connection with this work, to send more 

 experienced men into the field with him, al- 

 though he will receive the entire credit for 

 the work. 



The right of any geologist to restrict the 

 field of operations of this survey in opposition 

 to the public interests can not be admitted. 

 Where work is being done by a private geolo- 

 gist or an institution or an organization, or 

 where the -work has been done, and there is 

 prospect that the results will be published, it 

 is manifestly contrary to good policy for an- 

 other organization to enter the field and do the 

 same work over again. The survey has scru- 

 pulously refrained from such invasion of an 

 already occupied field. The fact that a field 

 has been occupied does not, however, give 

 exclusive rights to the first occupant indefi- 

 nitely if there is no prospect that the results 

 will ever be published. Eighteen years is suf- 

 ficient time in which to secure publication of 

 results, and in this case the interests of the 

 public far outweigh any private interests you 

 may have retained in the field. 



Your letter of Eebruary 26, 1906, tendering 

 your resignation as geologist in the United 

 States Geological Survey has been forwarded 



