March 5, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



387 



in their behalf, and only six were unde- 

 fended before Mm and dismissed. 



If it was only for his treatment of one of 

 these gentlemen the Superintendent stands 

 overwhelmingly condemened for absolute 

 unfitness for the place he holds. Among 

 these dismissed assistants was Professor 

 George Davidson, sound in health, active 

 in mind, the most distinguished member of 

 the scientific force of the Bureau, a man of 

 international reputation and the stauuchest 

 reliance of every Superintendent from Bache 

 to Mendenhall. For fifty years his life was 

 one of indefatigable industry, his record 

 one of honor and distinction in ev'ery line 

 of work he has been engaged in. Dean of 

 the scientists on the Pacific Coast, dele- 

 gate to the International Geodetic Associa- 

 tion, member of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, and with a name connected with 

 every piece of Coast Survey work from the 

 Aleutian Islands to San Diego, a man who 

 had deserved every distinction that could 

 be earned in the Survey, he was rewarded 

 for a half century of the highest class of 

 work by a dismissal which went into effect 

 in one hour after notice of it was received. 



Just before the last sweeping extension of 

 the civil service regulations took the scien- 

 tific places in the Coast Survey out of the 

 reach of spoilsman a last effort was made 

 to utilize a power which was now to be 

 lost forever, but the Secretary of the Treas- 

 ury showed his appreciation of the inop- 

 portuneness of so shameless an exercise of 

 spoliation by allowing the removal of one 

 efficient and respected oflScer instead of the 

 three that the Superintendent intended to 

 •dismiss. 



It is true that the recent extension of 

 the civil service regulations render it im- 

 probable that such unjustifiable and disor- 

 ganizing action will again be possible; but 

 the memory of his subserviency to the policy 

 of spoliation, and the knowledge of the 

 utter lack of sympathy he has shown for 



the work and needs of the Survey, preclude 

 any hope of usefulness from the present 

 Superintendent in the future. 



The duties of the Superintendent, when 

 properly executed, form a burden for the 

 strongest of men ; they broke down the 

 strength of Hassler, Bache, Patterson and 

 Hilgard ; and Professor Peirce, the greatest 

 American mathematician of his day, found 

 them too great to sustain. To their as- 

 sumption came the present incumbent, with 

 no previous experience of them, already 

 burdened with the weight of 70 years and, 

 as events have proved, with a mind which 

 had lost its elasticity and entirely un- 

 equal to the task of mastering the great 

 requirements that were demanded in a 

 Superintendent. A mind of the first order 

 would have been capable of this mastery; a 

 younger man, talented and receptive, would 

 have recognized that until time and study 

 had remedied his deficiencies a frank 

 demand for the advice and views of the 

 assistants who had grown gray in work 

 which had earned the commendation of all 

 qualified to pass upon it was not only due 

 to the best interests of the government, but 

 was most advantageous for himself Men 

 of the first class appear rarely; that he was 

 not of the second the course of the Super- 

 intendent makes evident to everyone; fail- 

 ing in both, the necessity of replacing him 

 by a competent successor is a self-evident 

 proposition. That the successor should 

 have the confidence and suffrages of scien- 

 tific men needs no better argument than 

 the results which have followed as a conse- 

 quence of the appointment of the present 

 incumbent. 



We need enumerate but a few of the 

 measures and demands made on the Coast 

 Survey to convince the general public of the 

 necessity for an unusually capable man in 

 the Superintendency ; there are the ordi- 

 nary surveys and the questions of necessity 

 for new and minuter resurveys where the 



