SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The commission appointed to investigate the 

 various scientific bureaus of the government has 

 submitted a partial report on the result of its 

 labors, and has draughted a bill restricting the 

 work and publications of the geological survey. 

 Briefly, the measure provides, that, after June 30 

 next, no money shall be expended except for the 

 collection, classification, and proper care of fossils 

 and other material ; no money is to be used for 

 paleontological work or publications, nor for the 

 general discussion of geological theories. The 

 survey is to be prohibited from compiling or 

 preparing for publication monographs or bulle- 

 tins, or other books, except an annual report, 

 which shall embrace only the transactions of 

 bureaus for the year. All collections of minerals 

 and other material now or hereafter to be made 

 by the survey, and not needed for the current 

 work thereof, are to be deposited in the national 

 museum. The works whose publication is dis- 

 continued may be published by the authors at 

 their own expense, who are to be allowed to 

 copyright their material. The secretary of the 

 interior is empowered to sell all the laboratories 

 and other property now in use by the geological 

 survey which shall no longer be needed after the 

 passage of the proposed bill, and the proceeds of 

 the sale are to be turned into the U. S. treasury. 

 The bill provides that all printing and engraving 

 done for the geological survey, coast and geodetic 

 survey, and hydrographic office of the navy de- 

 partment, and the signal bureau, shall hereafter 

 be estimated for separately, and prepared in 

 detail for each of the said bureaus. The full 

 report of the commission on the other bureaus is 

 expected this week. The members claim that 

 there has been great extravagance practised in 

 the publication of works by the geological survey, 

 and they propose to stop these ' reckless expen- 

 ditures.' The report of the commissioners is 

 unanimous in their action on the bill reported. 



This report will be received with much regret 

 by scientific men. The effect, so far as it pertains 



No. 169. — 1886. 



to the U. S. geological survey, should the bill be- 

 come a law, will be most disastrous, crippling, if 

 not almost entirely destroying, the survey's useful- 

 ness. Such sweeping and radical measures seem 

 ill-advised. The causes that have led to the result, 

 it is not hard to discover. Personal errors in other 

 branches of the government surveys, and the 

 exertions of a number personally opposed to the 

 present management, will have placed the survey 

 in a position from which it will be impossible to 

 recover in many years. We do not need to repeat 

 the argument, except to emphasize it, that national 

 aid in the publication of many scientific works is 

 absolutely necessary. In Europe such facilities 

 exist in endowed scientific societies that do not 

 exist in the United States, and will not for many 

 years to come. The result simply will be that 

 such works will not be published at all, and 

 science will be so much the loser. Permission to 

 copyright the works published at the expense of 

 the author will only evoke a smile on the part of 

 scientific men. One can imagine the danger 

 likely to accrue to the author of a thousand-paged 

 quarto on tertiary vertebrates, from his work be- 

 ing ruthlessly stolen, and issued in cheap paper 

 form. The work of the geological survey has 

 been managed honestly : no accusations whatever 

 have been sustained against it. Neither can 

 charges of extravagance in general be urged. 

 The survey has perhaps grown to be too extensive ; 

 but the evil by no means calls for such severe 

 pruning. Aside from arguments which will ap- 

 peal to scientific men, it must be borne in mind 

 that the survey can best justify its existence by 

 furnishing valuable results to the miner and the 

 farmer ; and these results can only be reached 

 when the evidence of all pertinent branches of 

 investigation are available. 



About a year ago much interest was taken 

 in the discussion of requisitions for admission to 

 colleges, when it was known that the faculty at 

 Harvard had taken action in favor of recommend- 

 ing a sound course in laboratory study of chemis- 

 try or physics as an alternative for the admission 

 requirements in Latin or Greek. A second step 

 in this direction is now taken in the report of a 

 committee of the board of Harvard overseers to 



