The Geological Society of America. — Hovey, 91 
holidays of that year by the election of Prof. James Hall as presi- 
dent, and Profs. James D. Dana and Alexander Winchell as vice 
presidents, and the new society was fairly launched on the career 
which has amply justified its existence. 
One great object of the society is publication; hence the choice 
of first editor was very important. Dr. W. J. McGee was selected 
for the office, and through his skill, care, and determination, the Bul- 
letin at once took front rank among scientific publications, a position 
which it has always maintained. As a storehouse of fact and of 
broad, just generalization, the volumes of the society's bulletin are 
excelled by those of no similar publication. 
Fears and misgivings abounded when it was discovered that this 
society was a success from the start. The American Association for 
the Advancement of Science had been the one society for so many 
years that attempts at difTerentiation seemed to be efforts to cut away 
the pillars of scientific order, but the fears were merely nightmare, 
and our society has proved itself an efficient ally of the Association. 
The society closes its first decade justly gratified by success and full 
of hope for the future. American geologists are no longer a disor 
derly lot of irregulars marching in awkward squads, but they form a 
reasonably compact body, though as individuals they owe allegiance 
to Canada, the United States, Mexico, or Brazil. 
But this society has to do with the world outside of itself and 
outside of its immediate line of thought. It must have more to do 
with that world in the future, if the outcome for science is to be 
what it should be, for the time is approaching rapidly when we must 
seek large sums for aid in prosecuting our work. In a proper sense 
this is a utilitarian age. Everywhere the feeling grows that the earth 
is for man, for the rich and the poor alike; that those things only are 
good which benefit mankind by elevating the mental or physical 
conditions. There appears at first glance to be very little connec- 
tion between great manufacturing interests on one hand and stone 
pecking at the roadside or the counting of striae on a fossil on the 
'Other, yet a geologist rarely publishes the results of a vacation study 
without enabling somebody else to improve his condition thereby. 
The speaker then went on to relate several instances showing the in- 
timate connection between geological studies and the proper de- 
velopment of the economic resources of the country. Among the 
striking instances cited were the discovery of the importance of the 
coal fields of Maryland, the determination of the absence of coal strata 
in New York state, that of the value of the salt lands in Michigan, 
and the announcement of the occurrence of vast bodies of iron ore 
ill the Lake Superior region. 
The Mesabi and Vermillion ranges of Minnesota contain deposits 
of iron ore, which for the present, at least, appear to be even more 
important than those of Northern Michigan. Almost fifty years ago, 
J. G. Norwood, while studying the easterly end of the region dis- 
rovered the Mesabi ores; a few years later, Whittlesey, after a de- 
