MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
33 
PROGRESS OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL AND 
OF MICHIGAN. 
BIOL( )GICAL SURVEY 
R. C. ALLEN, 
DIRECTOR. ANI) A. G. RUTH YEN, 
CHIEF FIELD NATURALIST. 
Geology and Topograph// by I*. C. Allen. 
Members and Friends of the Michigan Academy of Science: 
I am informed by your committee on policy that a brief recital of the 
progress of the Michigan Geological and Biological Survey would be 
henceforth acceptable as an annual feature of the Academy of Science 
reports. I am in hearty accord with the spirit of this idea and welcome 
the opportunity of thus keeping members of the Academy in closer touch 
with the purposes and accomplishments of the Survey. Every member 
of the Survey is a member of the Academy, as is also, with one exception, 
every contributor to the Survey publications in recent years. The func- 
tions of both organizations are, in the main, similar, but the Academy 
has the wider field, embracing all of the sciences, the Survey a nar- 
rower field, limited to geologic and biologic investigations within the 
confines of the state as specifically set forth in the laws by which the 
department was created. The Survey will complete in 1012 the 43rd 
year of its continuous existence. The support which the state has given 
it has not been large, but it has nevertheless been steady and not fitful, 
enabling the work to be carried forward from year to year with modest 
but definite progress. 
Brooks has recently shown that the character of the geologic investi- 
gations carried on by governmental surveys has been trending steadily 
toward an overwhelming emphasis of applied geologic science. In 1011, 
98% of the publications of the U. S. Geological Survey were classed by 
Brooks under the head of applied geology. The work of the various 
state geological surveys reveals a like conspicuous trend toward utilitar- 
ian, as distinguished from the purely scientific functions of these or- 
ganizations. The Michigan Survey is not only in sympathy with this 
movement, but is in active pursuit of the policy of bending its resources 
to distinctly and primarily useful purposes in the survey of the state. 
Investigations of purely scientific or purely educational character are 
not, however, neglected. It is certainly true that every, fact of science 
has somewhere and sometime a practical application, and it is also true 
that geology in the service of industry is necessarily none the less 
scientific. In many cases the results of geologic investigations have 
both immediate practical and purely scientific value, but too often 
one or the other of these values is obscured or subordinated by the 
form of presentation. The purely scientific in geology appeals to a very 
limited number of people, but applied geology, properly presented, is 
geologic science in the service of industry, and is useful to a verv con- 
siderable proportion of the intelligent masses. 
