156 The American Geologist. March, i890 
made, not by disregarding the experience of others, but by 
making every possible use of it. 
There is sometimes a tendenc}^ among the newly fledged to 
imagine that those who have gone before them have not taken 
the greatest pains in their work, that their conclusions have 
not been warranted. Thej' therefore begin with the idea that 
by the application of superior, or at any rate, new methods of 
investigation, they are going to upset everything done before 
they began. Such persons often succeed in making asses 
of themselves, and end their careers before they begin them — 
that is, they make careers impossible. 
I had occasion recently to go over the work of one of our 
older geologists — work done under' the most adverse circum- 
stances. This work had but a short time before been 
very sharply criticised by an aspiring young geologist, and 
I was prepared to find either one of them right. I not only 
found the work of the older geologist well done, but I was 
astonished at the clearness of his perceptions and the general 
reliability of his conclusions. The young man had committed 
a blunder from which his reputation can never recover. 
The necessity of caution on the part of the young geologist 
in publishing conclusions that one feels to be open to crit- 
icism, or when he sees that important facts maybe overlooked, 
can not be too strongly emphasized. The publication of facts 
is generally most useful, but deductions can afford to wait 
until they are properly matured. A most valuable piece of 
advice once given me was to the effect, that young people 
would better not begin pumping out of their intellectual 
reservoirs before something has been pumped into them. Life 
is too short, and progress all along the line is too slow for us 
to cumber the march of science with verbose discussions 
which help toward strife and contention instead of towards 
truth and union. To be sure "ignorance is no reason with a 
fool for holding his tongue," but my advice is not intended 
for fools, who will be fools in spite of everybody and every- 
thing, but for those who, having sound sense, desire not to 
appear fools or to bring discredit upon themselves or upon 
the science to which they are devoted. 
Science is not infrequently charged with vacillation. Apro- 
pos of this, one of our humorists has the following : " Science 
savs — but no matter what science says, for the next time she 
