Progress of Geology, 1 891 -1 91 5 
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mineral resources. The results secured did not always satisfy the 
public. Consequently individuals and companies supported their 
own investigations. Later the surveys began to give more attention 
to economic minerals. The federal survey has become the chief 
authority on the mining and reduction of ores. Evidence of this 
leadership, is the fact that private corporations are drawing from the 
federal survey many of their highest salaried investigators. 
The vastness of our mineral resources and the ease with which 
they are turned into wealth has encouraged careless and partial 
development. This falling short of possible accomplishment is 
keenly brought to our attention at the present time when the end 
results of certain hydrocarbon by-products, i. e., dyes, cannot be 
procured because Germany alone has carried such investigations to 
the highest industrial use. The same deficiency of development by 
Americans is also illustrated in the former exportation of radium 
minerals and other valuable ores which we preferred to sell raw. The 
present exigency in reference to dyes has aroused Americans, and 
should lead to a greater industrial independence; and the federal 
government, in co-operation with the American Radium Institute, an 
organization endowed for cancer investigation, is already successfully 
treating radium minerals and isolating the required radium salt. A 
further result of the present industrial condition in Europe is the hope 
that Americans may produce their own supply of potash salts and 
other ingredients in the manufacture of fertilizers; the federal survey 
is investigating the possibility of securing at least some of these 
supplies from our own minerals. 
Bureau of Mines. The response of the government to the in- 
creasing need of assistance in developing and conserving our mineral 
resources is seen in the organization in 1911 of the Bureau of Mines. 
Previously this work was one of the lines of activity of the Geological 
Survey. In addition to investigating problems connected with the 
reduction of minerals and with non-wasteful methods of mining, this 
Bureau has attracted much attention through its efforts to avoid, and 
meliorate the disastrous effects of, mine accidents. Such work is 
conservation in the highest sense; it is much more excusable to waste 
minerals than men. 
Alaska. In Alaska there is a larger percentage of government 
lands than in any other of the territories or states. In handling these 
lands the government can apply, usually without restraint, the most 
recent findings of its experts. Probably for this reason, the Geological 
