1881. ] Editors’ Table. 39 
EDITORS” TABLE. 
EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE, 
We have received the report of the Secretary of the In- 
terior for the year ending June 30, 1880. We find contained in 
it a recommendation to the President of the United States in 
favor of the Geological Survey as conducted under its present 
director, Clarence King. The accompanying summary of the 
plan of organization of the survey, impresses us favorably, and 
science should reap a rich harvest were its effectiveness assured 
by a strong personnel and a proper direction of their work. The | 
reports of progress which it is proposed to publish, will, we are 
informed, consist of the following twelve volumes: “Geology 
and Mining Industry of Leadville, Col.” by S. F. Emmons ; 
“ Geology of the Eureka mining district in Nevada,” by Arnold 
Hague, geologist-in-charge ; ‘‘ The Copper Rocks of Lake Supe- 
rior, and their continuation through Minnesota,” by Prof, Row- 
land D. Irving; “‘The Comstock Mines,” by Eliot Lord; “The 
Comstock Lode,” by George T. Becker, geologist-in-charge ; 
“The mechanical appliances used in mining and milling on the 
Comstock Lode,” by W. R. Eckard, chief engineer ; “ The Coal 
of the United States,” by Raphael Pumpelly, geologist-in-charge ; 
“ The Iron in the United States,” by Raphael Pumpelly ; ‘ The pre- 
cious metals,” by Clarence King, director; “ Lesser metals and gen- 
eral mineral resources,” by Raphael Pumpelly; “ The Uinkaret Pla- 
teau,” by Capt. C. E. Dutton, geologist-in-charge; “Lake Bonne- 
ville,” by G. K. Gilbert, geologist-in-charge ; “ The Dinocerata, a 
monograph on an extinct order of ungulates,” by Prof. 9. C. 
Marsh, palzontologist. 
We are naturally impressed, on reading this ee tenieal by the 
great predominance of the economic side of geology over the 
purely scientific, a tendency already visible in Mr. King’s Report 
on the Geology of the Fortieth Parallel. In this work one volume — 
was devoted to mining machinery, a subject which we claim to be 
foreign to the scope of a scientific geological survey. This ten- 
dency is developed to the full in the programme set before us, so 
that it really looks more like the prospectus of a mining © 
engineer than a plan for the advancement of geological science. 
That the country does not require this kind of work to be done 
by the Government, is self evident, since the employment of geo- 
logical and mining experts for the services apparently contem- | 
