70 Scientific Intelligence. 



from high points on the earth's surface, for at such high points it 

 is impossible to obtain conditions of uniformity. If we had 

 numerous observations at different heights taken in balloon ascen- 

 sions, we could construct curves which would show at a glance the 

 electrical conditions of the atmosphere. — Proc, Physical Society 

 Berlin, March 16, 1894. Ann. der Physik unci Chemie, No. 6, 

 1894, pp. 85-50. ' j. T. 



II. Geology and Mlnekalogy. 



1. The United States Geologiccd Survey. — The recent resigna- 

 tion of Major J. W. Powell, and the appointment of Charles D. 

 Walcott to be his successor as Director of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, mark the completion of the first fifteen years of this im- 

 portant Government Bureau. 



Congress did not organize this survey, but in a couple of clauses 

 of the Appropriation bill of March 3, 1879, established the office 

 of " Director of the Geological Survey," made the necessary ap- 

 propriations for his salary and for the expenses of the survey, and 

 placed upon the Director the duty of " directing the Geological 

 Survey, the classification of the public lands, the examination of 

 the geological structure, mineral resources and products of the 

 national domain." 



Clarence King was the first Director and performed the import- 

 ant function of organizing the Survey and setting it in motion. 

 In 1881 Mr. King resigned and Major J. W. Powell took up the 

 task of directing the survey, and it is largely clue to the energetic 

 directing of the survey by these two officers that such grand 

 results have been accomplished in so short time. In fact the 

 criticism of the administration of the survey has been directed 

 chiefly against the too energetic extension of its investigations into 

 fields thought, by the critics, to be outside the legitimate province 

 of the survey. 



The broadening of the area of the survey from the " national 

 domain," to which it was at first restricted, to include the whole 

 territory of the United States has resulted in opening the grander 

 problems of the geological structure and development of a conti- 

 nent to scientific study, and has already been found entirely prac- 

 ticable — aiding and not interfering with local state surveys. 



The great attention paid to topographical surveys has been 

 criticised both by those calling for more thorough work than has 

 been done, and by those jealous of enroachments upon the more 

 specific province of a geological survey — i. e. the elaboration of 

 the geology of the country. Topographic maps are undoubtedly 

 necessary to the minute study of the geology of a region, but 

 their construction should not be made the chief work of a- geo- 

 logical survey. 



The segregation of lands in the arid regions for irrigation 

 reservoirs, however important for the regions concerned, is not the 

 legitimate function of a geological survey, and the transfer of this 



