August 29, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



329 



spent in putting into the linear form of lan- 

 guage the most revolutionary work of the 

 time, 'The Origin of Species.' It seemed 

 as if the intricately interrelated facts of 

 life were of so complex a nature that lan- 

 guage could not handle the problem. But 

 the genius of Darwin was such that he not 

 only conceived the idea of natural selection 

 and proved its truth to his own mind, but he 

 so marshaled his facts and principles in 

 linear form in one volume that men were 

 forced to believe. Many of the ideas con- 

 tained in single sentences or paragraphs of 

 the ' Origin of Species ' have been expanded 

 into papers, volumes or treatises by others ; 

 and thus made easier to comprehend. The 

 ' Origin of Species ' has often, been said to 

 be a difficult book to read. So it is, be- 

 cause its ideas are more complex than 

 language can easily convey. Darwin un- 

 questionably saw deeper than he was able to 

 express; and it was the struggle to state 

 what he knew which made the writing of 

 the 'Origin' such an onerous task. But 

 geology as a whole is only less complex than 

 life ; and many of us in the smaller matters 

 with which we are attempting to deal have 

 felt the impossibility of conveying more 

 than imperfectly the ideas and relations 

 which are in our minds. 



In thinking of the marvelous complexity 

 of the phenomena of geology, and seeking 

 for an analogy which might in some meas- 

 ure express this complexity, it seemed to 

 me that the inhabitants of the globe and 

 their intricate relations furnish an approx- 

 imate illustration. From each individual 

 or family or hamlet or city or metropolis, 

 there go out on foot, by wheel, by wagon, by 

 railway, by vessel, various products, some 

 of them to the remoter parts of the earth. 

 From each center, by letter, telegram, tele- 

 phone, communications diverge ; if the cen- 

 ter be a large one, by thousands of lines. To 

 each center, materials and thoughts in a like 

 manner converge. In a similar way one 



class of geological phenomena is related to 

 nearly all other classes. They are related 

 as to their material parts, as to the forces 

 and agents acting, and as to principle con- 

 cerned in their production. For instance, 

 an economic geologist will appreciate that 

 the development of an ore deposit de- 

 l^ends upon the nature of adjacent rocks, 

 upon earth movements, uj^ou the resul- 

 tant deformation, upon fractures, upon 

 vulcanism, upon erosion by water and 

 ice and wind, upon the circulation of 

 underground water. One who hopes to 

 gain even an approximately adequate idea 

 of the genesis of an ore deposit, and an in- 

 sight as to what is probably beyond the 

 point where the deposit is 'shown up,' must 

 be able to handle the intricate principles of 

 geology. In so far as a geological or min- 

 ing engineer is a master of these, he rises 

 in his profession ; in so far as his knowledge 

 of facts and principles is meager, an ore de- 

 posit seems a lawless thing which can be 

 only dealt with on the relatively simple 

 principle of the doctrine of chances. If an 

 ore body happens to be found at any place, 

 follow it. If for some unknown reason it 

 is lost or depreciates in value, pi'od the 

 ground in all directions, up and down, to the 

 right and left, in the blind hope that chance 

 may find more ore. In many eases nine 

 tenths of this expensive chance work is done 

 in a manner that a fair knowledge of the 

 occurrences, relations and principles of ore 

 deposits would have shown in advance to be 

 wasted. 



If the statement thus far be founded on 

 truth, the training of a geologist is a valu- 

 able one from an intellectual point of view. 

 It is the fashion for professors in all de- 

 partments of learning each to hold that a 

 knowledge of his subject is necessary for a 

 liberal education. I have heard each of 

 half a dozen professors, including the clas- 

 sics, history, economics, English, in a sin- 

 gle evening each prove to his own satisfac- 



