Decembee 19, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



989 



reasonable to ask our scientists to-day to solve 

 large problems, as it would be to furnish Mr. 

 Schwab a coal and an iron mine, and ask him 

 and a few miners to turn out a steel rail or 

 a Baldwin locomotive. 



If the Carnegie Institution would thor- 

 oughly organize bodies of workers in a few 

 fields too large and complex for our present 

 resources and methods, and furnish them 

 with adequate supplies of all kinds, it would 

 avoid duplication, and would, I venture to 

 believe, set an inspiring- example to our pres- 

 ent scientific institutions, and attain reliable 

 and relatively complete results of high value. 

 And assuredly an institution founded by one 

 of the foremost organizers of industry could 

 do no better for science than to aid in its 

 organization. S. E. Mezes. 



T^NIVEKSITY OF Texas. 



To THE Editor of Science: With the ac- 

 cumulation of valuable papers from men of 

 science in regard to the disbursement of the 

 fund of the Carnegie Institution so as best 

 to advance human knowledge, it has occurred 

 to me that, as these papers have all been writ- 

 ten by teachers or authors, it might not be 

 out of place for a collector of facts (who 

 has helped increase our knowledge of the ex- 

 tinct life of the earth during thirty-five years 

 spent in the fossil fields of the West) to make 

 a few remarks on this interesting topic, even 

 though the years of early manhood were 

 spent in the field and not the university. 

 From long experience I can testify to the 

 difiicult life-work of a collector in America, 

 when he gives all that he has to the advance- 

 ment of pure science, and can well appreciate 

 the remark of Professor E. D. Cope when he 

 said to me several years ago : ' After us there 

 will be more demand for our wares.' Though 

 I have fared better than some collectors, and 

 have usually received credit for my discov- 

 eries, yet it has grieved me that I had to 

 Bend a large number of my most valuable 

 collections of Permian and Cretaceous verte- 

 brates to Munich, for lack of proper support 

 and encouragement at home. And though 

 the words of commendation from such a noted 

 authority as Dr. von Zittel are very pleasant 



to receive, when he writes me my collections 

 from Kansas and Texas are the best in 

 Europe, and that they will be an everlasting 

 memorial to my name, I am an American, and 

 it has hurt me to see treasures that are of 

 greater value than anything man's fingers or 

 brains have created leave our shores forever. 

 Now, as thirty-five years have been devoted to 

 the advancement of historical geology with 

 little hopes of ever receiving financial consid- 

 erations for my life-work, and, judging the 

 future by the past, many more of my fossils 

 will cross the Atlantic, as did a fine skeleton 

 of a Kansas mosasaur I sent the British Mu- 

 seum last month, I want to ask that the Car- 

 negie Institution take measures, if it lies in 

 their power, to stop this fearful drain on our 

 natural resources and retain in American 

 institutions the wonderfully preserved records 

 of the Almighty in the rocks of America. 

 I have little doubt but that specimens have 

 left our country that can never be. duplicated. 

 I remember that the only fine specimen I 

 ever found of a Cretaceous shark, about 

 twenty-five feet long, now rests in Munich. 

 Owing to the cartilaginous nature of the 

 bones it is rare indeed to find the whole col- 

 umn preserved. 



Not only should all the valuable fossils re- 

 main in our country, but the fossil hunter of 

 the future should have better material re- 

 turns for his labor than has been my lot. 

 Professor Edward Orton once wrote me that 

 the work of collecting was a pleasant avoca- 

 tion, but as yet would not do as a vocation. 

 I have often thought he was right when I 

 have had to struggle for means to keep at 

 work so I could continue through life to add 

 to the store of historical facts. This state of 

 affairs should cease in the United States, and 

 the Carnegie Institution could do no better 

 with the fund left in their charge in ad- 

 vancing science than first to retain in Ameri- 

 can institutions the extinct fossils that make 

 up the ancient life histories of the earth. 

 And second to properly reimburse men who 

 will give their lives, if necessary, to accumu- 

 late facts in paleontology, and prepare them 

 for scientific study. I hold it as self-evident 

 that there can be no advancement of the sci- 



