Progress of Geology, 1 891 -1 91 5 
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of the continents; he was a meteorologist since at that time no one 
else in the village communities or on the college faculties was thought 
to bear a closer relationship to the mysteries of the air; he was an 
anthropologist because fossils, hence all antiquities, belonged to 
his domain; and the public decreed that he was also an 
antiquarian. These men were promethean encyclopedias of facts, 
inspiring teachers, illuminating but unrecompensed prophets 
whose real compensation is the host of workers begot by their 
enthusiasm. 
The sons of these pioneers, as is usual with the second genera- 
tion, did not give disappointment by evincing greater wisdom than 
the fathers, and their grandsons feel no chagrin in not knowing com- 
pletely any one of the numerous fields which the grandsires cultivated 
thoroughly. Thus has geology evolved specialists. 
A comparison of the courses offered today and in the year 1890 
by the Departments of Geology in our colleges and universities 
shows the results of specialization. No longer can the student listen 
to lectures on minerals, and mountain development, and mining, and 
paleontology, and petrography, given by the same man. The most 
modestly equipped university now has at least three groups in its 
geology courses; the more fully equipped have five or six groups. 
The tendency augurs further subdivision. It is not so long since the 
department of mineralogy did the work of the petrographer, but now 
our petrographers are splitting into several particular fields. In this 
subdivision of its work, geology and the other sciences accord with 
modern industry; and in the most highly organized industrial 
plants, the best machine does automatically just one thing. Possibly 
in the years to come, when all the little parcels of investigation have 
been thoroughly analyzed, the generations will begin to produce 
synthetically an end product that may bear some semblance to the 
pioneer in geology. 
Text Books. The extensive geologic text of Eduard Suess, 
begun in the 80^s, was completed a few years ago, not long before his 
death. This remarkable set of books has inspired emulation in 
several other countries. The comprehensive text of Geike in two 
volumes was very completely revised and republished in 1903. In 
this country a similar feat of scholarship has been accomplished by 
Chamberlin and Salisbury. It is doubtful whether we will have 
many more such texts. Geology as a science has become so sub- 
divided, and so much detail worked out in each field, that a general 
