August 29, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



121 



The great size of our country, the wide sweeping character of 

 its general geologic structure, and the limits placed by civil boun- 

 daries on State work, must throw most of the important general 

 questions into the hands of the National survey. Local details 

 can and should be worked out by the State surveys, and these re- 

 sults should be placed as soon as possible at the disposal of the 

 specialists of the National survey. It is self-evident that prob- 

 lems that can be solved only after a wide experience and ac- 

 quaintance with the whole country can not be satisfactorily un- 

 dertaken by the State surveys, but that they must be solved by 

 the larger and stronger organization. 



There are certain classes of work that, of necessity, fall upon a 

 National rather than upon the State surveys; such are triangula- 

 tion, preci.^e levels, topography, paleontologic work, almost all in- 

 vestigations falling under the head of what is usually known as 

 pure science, and all those investigations requiring much 

 time and labor and money and many specialists. The reasons 

 why State surveys can not do work of this class are not 

 far to seek. The men with whom the National survey has 

 to deal are our broadest minded statesmen, — men who compre- 

 hend the scope and importance of purely scientific work, while, 

 as a rule, State legislators look to immediate and what they call 

 practical results. Such men can not be convinced of the impor- 

 tance of any work that looks not to the immediate material pros- 

 perity of the State, while they are but little concerned, as a rule, 

 with the intellectual income from it. 



It is entirely beyond the means of any State survey to make a 

 topographic map of the entire area of the State: the best it can do 

 is to select a few typical areas and map those. But maps are ab- 

 solutely essential to satisfactory geological work, and map making 

 has come to consume a constantly increasing share of the money 

 appropriated for geological surveys, both State and National. 

 The National survey, however, having large appropriations for 

 topographic work, and contemplating as it does the mapping of 

 the entire area of the United States, ought to do this work. 



That these maps must meet various demands, and must there- 

 fore be constructed with varying degrees of accuracy and detail, 

 every one will admit. As a matter of fact, however, the maps 

 made are usually, as they should be, parts of a plan, and upon a 

 scale for mapping the whole of the United States. This plsm and 

 scale may be perfect for that particular purpose, but it often hap- 

 pens that neither the plan nor the map is adapted to the purposes 

 of the State surveys. And certainly nothing can be plainer than 

 that the maps made by a geological survey ought to be available 

 for geological work, or that, failing to meet the demands of geol- 

 og3-, there is no geological excuse or reason for their existence. 



Geodetic work can not be carried on by the States, because 

 States are but small parts of and furnish but few points in geo- 

 detic questions. European countries have even been obliged to 

 unify their work. In the United States work of this character 

 must be left to some institution of the general government. That 

 paleontologic work should be relegated to the National survey 

 seems to me scarcely to admit of question. 



It might be urged against these reasons that the States of Illi- 

 nois and Nevv York afford striking examples of the fact that 

 States may and can and do carry on a high grade of paleontologic 

 work. But it should be remembered that the conditions under 

 which these excellent results have been obtained have passed or 

 are about to pass away. For, while the States of Illinois and New 

 York have grown in wealth and intelligence since their surveys 

 were begun, the Legislatures of those States could not to-day be 

 induced to take up and carry forward works of so purely a scien- 

 tific nature ; and if those States could have seen the end from the 

 beginning it may well be doubted whether they would have un- 

 dertaken the great paleontologic investigations carried on so long 

 and so successfully by Hall and by Worthen. 



Another point which I must insist upon is that it is the place of 

 a State geological survey to do what is wanted in the State, and 

 as a rule economic results are wanted. The people are entitled to 

 what they pay for. Not that the survey must go on every wild- 

 goose chase suggested and examine every prospect and claim in 

 the country, but the problems which the people wish to have 

 solved should be solved if they can be solved. 



These very demands define the work of the State surveys, and 

 separate it pretty sharply from that of the Government survey. 

 If we are to be perfectly honest with ourselves, we must confess 

 that State surveys have, as a rule, failed to do what the people 

 have expected of them, and one of the principal reasons for these 

 failures is that the geologists have not had the counsel and the co- 

 operation of a National survey. The geologists who have encour- 

 aged the making of appropriations for the work have invariably 

 held out the hope that these surveys would be devoted to eco- 

 nomic geology, while members of Legislatures who have sup- 

 ported such bills have invariably done so in the expectation that 

 they would do somethmg of direct economic importance. But 

 there are but few exceptions to the rule that these State appropri- 

 ations have been devoted to paleontologic problems and to pure 

 science, while economic problems have been entirely lost sight 

 of. 



These economic problems, or such of them, or rather, perhaps, 

 such phases of them as can safely be dealt with by a State, should 

 be the special province of the State surveys, while the broader 

 questions which can be satisfactorily studied and safely discussed 

 only over wide areas should be left to the National survey. 



It is true that economic and purely scientific problems cannot 

 be entirely separated, and there is no necessity that they should 

 be, but geologic work may give preference or prominence to one 

 or the other phase of the question as the case may demand. I 

 have said that economic problems should, in so far as possible, be 

 left to the States. There are cases, however, in which this can- 

 not be done, for there are often those which, requiring study over 

 a wider area, cannot be solved in a single State. These should be 

 studied in part or entirely, as the case may demand, by the Na- 

 tional sui-vey. 



It seems plain, in so far as the relations between the National 

 and the State surveys are concerned, that the National survey 

 should leave all that it can safely leave to private enterprise and 

 to State surveys, and it should deal with those problems which 

 State surveys and individuals will not or can not satisfactorily 

 deal with. 



It is ray opinion, also, that the National survey, being better 

 informed of what is going on in the way of geologic work than 

 the State geologists, and being in every respect the strongest of 

 our organizations, should hold out a helping hand to the State 

 surveys, and from their wider and more valuable experience, 

 give advice and encouragement to State work. In this way State 

 aid to scientific work would be encouraged and the National sur- 

 vey would widen its helpful influence. 



It goes without saying that State and National surveys 

 should not ride rough shod over each other just because there is 

 no law to prevent their duplicating each other's work or their do- 

 ing work that will interfere with each other's plans or efficiency. 

 It would be easy for a Government survey to discredit and embar- 

 rass a State survey to such a point that the State would put a stop 

 to its own work. Fortunately, our National siu:vey has been con- 

 ducted rather with a view to aiding the State surveys. But this 

 aid can be made much more effectual than it ever has been, and I 

 have no doubt it will be made so whenever we are all ready for 

 such co-operation. 



What must a man's feelings be when he brings his contribution, 

 to find that it is in the wrong place, or that it is not wanted. 

 Mistakes of this sort are constantly being committed in geologic 

 work, and in abundance too, all because we have no recognized 

 directing head for the work done outside of the United States 

 Geological Survey. 



The bulk of geologic literature must yearly become greater, and 

 unless it becomes at the same time better, we must expect a day 

 to arrive when geologists may well stand appalled before it. Much 

 of the literature is practically worthless; it is an encumbrance 

 rather than a help to the progress of science, and we should feel 

 grateful to any method that would deliver us and geology from an 

 evil which is coming to be a more and more serious one. 



In one of the States in which the United States Survey has been 

 doing topographic work, an area of 3,000 square miles that had 

 already been surveyed had to be remapped by the State survey to 

 meet its own demands. Here, I think, no one will have any diffi- 



