746 
understand, that the physical and natural sci- 
ences are more than ever to be encouraged. 
Original researches are in progress in private 
and in public laboratories to an extent un- 
known among us a few years ago. More 
ample means of publication, especially in sub- 
jects which require costly illustration, are loud- 
ly called for. Three or four such memoirs 
proceeding from American laboratories have 
been offered to the Royal society in London, 
and have been ordered to be printed in their 
Proceedings, because there was no place for 
them here. The national government, with a 
parsimonious hand, but still with increasing 
wisdom, is providing for such scientific publi- 
cations as are more or less pertinent to the 
public service. Schools of technology are in- 
creasing in number and in power. It is more 
and more openly asserted, that no one in these 
days is receiving a truly liberal education, 
unless he adds to mathematics and languages 
an acquaintance with at least one branch of 
scientific inquiry, derived in part from work in 
a laboratory, and from personal observation of 
the methods of research. Seaside laborato- 
ries at Newport, Wood’s Holl, Annisquam, and 
Beaufort, are giving facilities for the study of 
life at the seashore, as years ago opportunities 
were given in the interior to the student and 
collector of fossils. 
As we look at the situation, and recall such 
facts as we have stated, we believe that in 
American education the claims of literature 
and science are fairly adjusted. More ought 
to be done in both directions. The richest of 
our colleges are poor. Were the income of 
Harvard to be doubled, every dollar could be 
well employed at once. Were there to be a 
dozen Harvards and Yales, with plans as wise 
as those which have governed these old foun- 
dations, and with means as ample, the country 
would reap thebenefits . 
Ir the excellent recommendations made by 
the National academy of sciences five or six 
years ago had then been fully adopted by con- 
gress, we should probably have been spared 
SCIENCE. 
(Vou. IIL, No. 72. 
the present suggestion to a congressional com- 
mittee, that the work of the coast-survey 
should be divided; the hydrography and coast 
triangulation to be assigned to the hydrographic 
office of the navy department, and the geodetic 
work to the geological survey of the interior 
department. It was by the advice of the acad- 
emy that the present geological survey arose, 
practically by the consolidation of three pre- 
viously existing organizations. And in its 
memorandum, drawn up with great care and 
skill, the academy recommended that the coast- 
survey should be transferred to the interior 
department, ‘‘ retaining its original field of 
operations, and assuming also the entire men- 
suration of the public domain; and that, so 
modified and extended, it hereafter be known 
as the U.S. coast and interior survey.”’ 
The purpose of the academy was plain, — to 
bring together, under one department, the coast 
(and interior) survey, for the mensuration and 
mapping of the country; the geological sur- 
vey, for the study of its geological structure 
and natural resources; and the land-office, for 
the disposition and sale of public lands. The 
two latter would require their own maps, based 
upon geodetic points furnished by the first ; 
and the land-office could obtain from the geo- 
logical survey all the information it required 
as to the value and classification of lands. The 
entire survey of the public domain would thus 
fall, as is proper, under one department; and 
that co-ordination of work and mutual co-op- 
eration imperatively required would be obtain- 
able without difficulty, and with the least waste. 
In no event should the work of the coast- 
survey be divided: it forms an harmonious and 
congruous whole. Hydrography must be based 
on geodetic work. Submarine topography is 
important to an understanding of the structure 
of a continent. Nor is a geological survey 
deeply concerned in the niceties of refined ge- 
odetic measurements, nor in geodetic questions 
as such. For its purposes, work of a more 
rapid and superficial kind suffices ; and it were 
much to be feared, that, in its subordination to 
ee 
