262 ANNUAL BEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
problems require for their solution the equipment of more or less 
expensive expeditions or travel over large areas. Such projects, 
as a rule, can not be undertaken by individual geologists or by local 
organizations. The preparation of a geologic map of a whole coun- 
try, with its explanatory text, generally recognized as essential fun- 
damental work, is an undertaking that requires consistent effort by 
a central organization extending over a period of years. Such a 
map is not likely to result from the patching together of the results 
of uncoordinated local effort. From a broadly utilitarian point of 
view the intelligent layman as well as the geologist must recognize 
that the development of a country's natural resources in such a 
manner as to secure their maximum use for the greatest number of 
its citizens necessarily depends upon reliable information concern- 
ing the character, location, and extent of these resources and that 
this information should be available before they are exploited by 
those who have eyes only for their own immediate profit or before 
they pass entirel}?^ into private control or are exhausted. Such infor- 
mation can best be obtained and published by an impartial national 
organization responsible for its results to the people as a whole. 
Such a layman will recognize also that knowledge of the mineral 
resources of a country must rest upon a geological foundation. As 
Prof. J. C. Branner has recently said in his " Outlines of the Geology 
of BrazH": 
After a life spent chiefly in active geologic work and in the direction of such 
work I should be remiss in my duty to Brazil if I did not use this occasion to 
urge on Brazilian statesmen the serious necessity for the active encouragement 
and support of scientific geologic work on the part of the National and State 
Governments. Knowledge must precede the application of knowledge in geology 
as well as in other matters; and unless the development of the country's 
mineral resources be based on and proceed from a scientific knowledge of its 
geology there must inevitably be waste of effort, loss of money, and the delay 
of national progress inseparable from haphazard methods." 
Finally the citizen of narrower vision will regard as sufficient 
justification for a national geological survey the fact that he himself 
can turn to it for information and assistance in the development of 
particular mineral deposits to his own material advantage. 
As a matter of fact most of the progressive countries of the world 
maintain geological surveys, so that the desirability of such an or- 
ganization appears to have been generally recognized, whatever may 
have been the particular reason or reasons that set in motion the 
machinery of organization in each country. 
Recognizing the fact that most of the principal countries have 
established geological surveys and granting that there are good 
reasons for considering the maintenance of such an organization 
1 J. C. Branner, Outlines of the geology of Brazil, Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. 30 :194. 1919. 
