WORK OF THE FUTURE 117 



so well stated by Sollas, * is in its evolutional stage, having passed 

 through the catastrophic and uniformitarian phases of development. 

 In becoming evolutional — 



" Not merely the earth's crust, but the whole of earth-knowledge is the subject 

 of our research. To know all that can be known about our planet, this, and nothing 

 less than this, is its aim and scope. From the morphological side geology in- 

 quires, not only into the existing form and structure of the earth, but also into 

 the series of successive morphological states through which it has passed in a long 

 and changeful development. Our science inquires also into the distribution of the 

 earth in time and space. On the physiological side it studies the movements and 

 activities of our planet ; and, not content with all this, it extends its researches into 

 aetiology and endeavors to arrive at a science of causation. In these pursuits 

 geology calls all the other sciences to her aid. In our commonwealth there are no 

 outlanders ; if an eminent physicist enters our territory we do not begin at once 

 to prepare for war, because the very fact of his undertaking a geological inquiry 

 of itself confers upon him all the duties and privileges of citizenship. A physicist 

 studying geology is by definition a geologist." 



The question whether the geologist of the future can make his profes- 

 sion support him finds its answer equally in the interpretation of the 

 history of the past. The support of the geologist depends on public ap- 

 preciation of the value of his services. The growth of that appreciation 

 is shown not only by the growing demand for researches in economic 

 geology, but by the increasing willingness of legislatures and men of 

 wealth to endow researches having for their immediate end only the 

 acquisition of knowledge. It is more and more understood by men 

 whose ability puts them in positions of responsibility that material 

 progress depends, in the ultimate analysis, on the growth of knowledge, 

 and from this increasing confidence in the ultimate utility of pure 

 science research is reaping a generous harvest of endowment. 



As we look back over the field of geologic work of the last century 

 the retrospect may lead the young geologist to think that the great 

 problems have been largely solved, that the future offers only the routine 

 of areal work and local problems. That was my thought concerning 

 the region east of the Mississippi in 1870, when reading the works of 

 James Hall, the Rogers Brothers, Dana, and others. Once well into 

 active work, however, I found that* new and broad problems were open- 

 ing up in the field I had chosen, the pre-Silurian sedimentary rocks, 

 which I then thought to be limited as compared with those of the later 

 geologic periods. Question after question, both local and continental, 

 has come up for investigation. Most of them are still unsolved, and 

 their study will bring a host of others that will line up before the mind 



* W. J. Sollas, Evolutional Geology, Nature, vol. 62, 1900. 



