THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 
Vol. I. FEBRUARY, 1888. No. 2. 
THE NIOBRARA RIVER, CONSIDERED WITH REFER- 
ENCE TO ITS CAPACITY FOR IRRIGATION. 
BY DR. L. E. IIICKS. 
The modern scientist is not a recluse. He has, indeed, his 
hours of seckision, his days and weeks of patient hibor in labo- 
ratory or cabinet, but he does not bury himself there like the 
alchemist or astrologer of the middle ages. He walks abi"oad 
and is conversant with nature and with men, both in the gath- 
ering of material for study and in the communication of the 
results of study. For it is the crowning glory of modern science 
that its results are not for the private gratification of the inves- 
tigator, but for the benefit of mankind. Science is a teacher of 
men but also a servant of men. If, upon the one hand, it fur- 
nishes forth for the instruction of mankind crystal truths from 
deepest mines, eternal laws and principles from starry bights, 
on the other hand it helps to lift heavy burdens, helps to guide 
the farmer's plow, the carpenter's plane, the mariner's ship, 
lends a hand even for the most common drudgeries of life. A 
principle discovered is soon transmuted into a process for the 
production of wealth. All industrial progress is due to the ap- 
plication of scientific principles to the problems encountered in 
each line of effort. 
Geology, no less than other sciences, touches at many points 
the practical life of the millions. The problems of economic 
geology are numerous, and some of them are so far-reaching 
that a single one underlies the whole fabric of modern industries. 
The occurrence of ii"on ores, for instance, and the production 
from them of iron and steel, is a problem of economic geology, 
