SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The joint committee of the two houses of 

 congress, appointed to consider the relations 

 to each other of the different scientific bureaus 

 of the government, not being ready to report 

 when called upon last December, had its time 

 extended to Jan. 15, and has meanwhile kept 

 its deliberations and conclusions absolutely 

 secret. All that is known is that it has taken 

 a mass of testimony, and that the heads of bu- 

 reaus concerned have had ample opportunity 

 to render the committee all needful informa- 

 tion, and to express their own views, most of 

 which are well known. The committee, as 

 our readers know, asked also the advice of the 

 National academy of sciences (to which body 

 one of its own members, Col. Lyman, be- 

 longs) ; and the text of the academy's report is 

 published by us to-day on another page. We 

 gave, some weeks ago, an intimation of its 

 drift. 



The report gives a brief account of the 

 method in which such bureaus are organized in 

 other countries ; discusses at some length the 

 character of the work done by the coast and 

 geodetic and the geological surveys, especially 

 in those points where their provinces are similar, 

 pointing out that two distinct and independent 

 trigonometric surve}'s of the United States are 

 now in process of execution ; distinguishes be- 

 tween the military and meteorological work of 

 the signal-service, and recommends their com- 

 plete separation ; indicates the danger of 

 duplication of work by the coast-survey and 

 hydrographic office, but is not prepared to rec- 

 ommend that the latter be detached in any way 

 from the control of the navy department, nor 

 that the hydrographic work of the coast-sur- 

 vey, for over forty years conducted so satisfac- 

 torily, be separated from that organization, but 



No. 102.— 1885. 



suggests the lines on which it thinks the coast- 

 survey should work ; lays down the principle 

 that the government should not undertake any 

 work which can be equally well done by the 

 enterprise of individual investigators, and that 

 such work should be confined to what will 

 4 promote the general welfare ' of the country ; 

 urges the importance of a proper extension 

 of the trigonometrical survey of the United 

 States ; and, finally, recommends the estab- 

 lishment either of a department of science, or 

 of a mixed commission of nine members, — 

 two of them scientific civilians to be appointed 

 by the president for six years, two scientific 

 men from the army and navy similarly ap- 

 pointed, three heads of the principal scientific 

 bureaus, together with the president of the 

 national academy, and the secretary of the 

 Smithsonian institution. To the department 

 of science, or to the supervision of this com- 

 mission, it would transfer the coast-survey, 

 the geological survey, and the meteorological 

 bureau, and, in establishing a physical labora- 

 tor} T , add to it a bureau of weights and meas- 

 ures, the functions of which are now performed 

 by the coast-survey. The province of the 

 proposed commission is amply defined. 



No more important measure, affecting the 

 interests of science in this country, has been 

 proposed since the chartering of the National 

 academy of sciences with the functions of an 

 advisory board to government departments. 

 Whether the joint committee, and after them 

 congress, adopt the suggestions of the academy, 

 improve upon them, or utterly discard them, 

 the principle upon which the government 

 should conduct the scientific bureaus which 

 it must of necessity maintain — the principle 

 of proper co-ordination — has been struck ; and 

 at some time, if not now, it will prevail. No 

 one who has watched the extraordinary and 

 yet healthy growth of the geological survey 

 since its re-organization five years ago — a re- 



