BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



VOL. 28, PP. 235-248 MARCH 31, 1917 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF GEOLOGY AND THE ORDEE OF THE 



STATE 1 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BY .lOIIN iVE. CLARKE 



{Read before the Society December 28, 1916) 



Once each year we come together to renew onr strength in nnison, like 

 Antaeus, by touching the earth. 



I am conscious of taking some degree of liberty in departing from the 

 usual form of this established function — the annual address. It would 

 gratify me and might in some measure have diverted or -persuaded 3^ou, 

 if this occasion were given to the illumination of some specific technical 

 theme. But the spirit of the hour seems to impel me rather to read from 

 my experience and observation, or at least to portray as I see it, some 

 part of the obligation of the State to our science and the responsibility 

 of this science to the State. 



The occasion is perhaps opportune, not so much in this place of meet- 

 ing which happens to be the seat of government of but one of the many 

 States here represented, and in the presence of members from two great 

 federated governments ; but essentially because, for the sake of all parties 

 of interest, we must recognize more clearly the civic element in geological 

 science and insist more pertinaciously on the immediate as well as- the 

 ultimate dependence of a State, if organized to endure, on the demon- 

 strated laws of this science. 



I wish I might extend to my colleagues among the official geologists of 

 many States an assurance that this address is to be devoted to some added 

 demonstration of the obligation of the State to exploit to the utmost its 

 geological resources, for the sake of the commercial interests of its com- 

 munity, but such public arguments are now superfluous. It is a primary 

 impulse and almost elemental instinct in the State to develop the com- 

 mercial assets of its rocks. The appeal is so direct, so simple, so impera- 

 tive that no State can afford to ignore a well directed official effort to 



1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Geological Society March 17, 1917. 



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