Editorial Comment. 35 
Thoulet estimates the volume of the oceans at 1.347,874,850 
cu. kil., which reduced to English measure equals 318,191,728 
cu. miles. 
The estimated amount of mechanically contained water in 
a section of a mile over that part of the earth's crust covered 
by land is thus 2.7% of the water now on the earth's surface, 
or a layer 88 feet deep over its entire surface. 
There is undoubtedly a large amount of water below one 
mile, but w^e can only conjecture as to the amount, nor does 
this estimate include that chemically contained. No estimate 
was made of the amount of water beneath the bed of the 
ocean, as we have no way of knowing of what it is composed 
or how thick the permeable layer is. This too would increase 
the total. 
EDITORIAL COMMENT. 
The present condition of the Geological Society rightly 
gives its friends a gratified confidence in its long life and 
wide usefulness. It came none too soon and, under the guid- 
ance of judicious orticials, it has suffered neither the ills of 
prematurity nor the sequehe of o'er ra})id growth. No rival- 
ries or schisms divide its ranks, and its membership is Avork- 
ing compactly and in perfect harmony toward the objects of 
the association. Our attention, however, is often forcibly 
directed to the fact the Society's results, as shown in its pub- 
lications, are almost exclusively geological. This is as it 
should be, for such an end the organization exists. Here and 
there among the bulletins of the Society will be found paleon- 
tologic papers of character, but these are extremely few and 
upon looking over the membership list we must infer that 
thej^ have had therein but few readers. How many of the 
members have read, for illustration, the papers of Jackson 
and Jaggar on the morphology of certain echinodermsy and 
with what propriety anyway, one may ask, do such papers, 
however excellent, appear in the ])ublications f)f a geological 
society? They contain nothing geologic except that the sub- 
jects are fossils; their method is not germane to the geologic 
mode and their conclusions altogether beyond the scope of 
the geologist. On the otiier hand, how many of the handful 
