MORE WANDERINGS AND WORK 231 



very poor. I hope mine is not all gone, for if the French 

 gentlemen who have so kindly undertaken the task of 

 special providence to the copper market will only per- 

 form that office a few years, they will enable me to carry 

 out all the plans I ever dreamed of, before I am too old 

 to carry them out myself. And I trust that at any rate 

 they will enable me to go ahead within reasonable time 

 and explore the Gulf Stream on my own account and not 

 be dependent upon the aid of Government, which, as 

 you know, I look upon as the worst kind of assistance. 

 The new Fish Commissioner has tried to do his best to 

 continue to extend to naturalists the facilities of the 

 Wood's Hole Station, but Congress has drawn a line 

 through the bulk of his appropriations for that purpose, 

 and our expenditures are so well arranged that it may 

 be the end of the summer before the money for the season 

 is available. 



The present heads of Government scientific bureaus 

 at Washington are starting a crusade for a great Na- 

 tional University to have its seat there. It may do very 

 well for a beginning, but after ten or fifteen years no 

 Professor would be anything but a political demagogue, 

 and it would be the worst thing for science and the 

 existing Universities — of which there are too many 

 already — to have official science get a stronger foothold 

 and have greater influence than it already has. It has 

 killed all individuality in Geology, the Professors of 

 Geology in the United States being, with few excep- 

 tions, the satellites of the Director of the Geological 

 Survey of the United States. I hope to get back to 

 Cambridge towards the middle of November and you 

 may see me drop in upon you in January on my way 

 somewhere. 



