Editorial Comment. 179 
this ore — and that is oceanic sciUmentation. Tliat there has been 
a profound change in the sediments since their origination is quite 
evident; but whether this change took place, in whole or in part, 
prior to consolidation or after it, is as yet unknown; and if after 
consolidation it is equally unknown whether it was accomplished in 
Taconic or in Recent time. There seems to have been something- 
peculiar either in the nature of the sediments of this horizon or 
in the influences to which they have been subjected, and this 
peculiarity is expressed on both sides of the lake Superior basin. 
EDITOEIAL COMMENT. 
The United States Geoixxjical Survev. 
The phenomenal development of the U. S. Geological Survey 
has received its first serious check, ('ongress refused to vote the 
amount of money asked for by the director for its support during 
the current year, granting only about fort}- per cent. It became 
necessary at once to dismiss man}' of the employes, and even to 
abolish, or close temporarily, some of the lines of research on 
which the Survey was engaged. The annual cost of the survey 
has been for several years, between six and eight hundred thou- 
sand dollars, and the men who have been in commission or con- 
stant employ, have been about one hundred and fifty^ not 
including lalmrers. 
We do not conceive that this check is indicative of any desire 
■on the part of Congress to put an end to the Geological Survey, 
although it is well known that a few legislators would welcome 
that result. We do not even suppose that Congress desired to 
injure the survey, or to impede it in the construction of the great 
geological map of the United States. [n the hurry of the action 
taken by Congress in the closing hours of a long session, it is 
impossible to know what motives actuated the individual con- 
gressman, and it was manifestly impossible to express any form- 
ulated criticism or to enact any general plan for the future of the 
survey. The only feasible step was to reduce the annual fund 
and instruct a committee to report on the survey at its next ses- 
sion. The action taken by congress will be construed l)y some, 
and especially by those who are affected by it officially, as a 
c ihimity to geological science. In some respects it will affect 
American geology unfavorably, but it is not by any means certain 
that true geological science will in the end l)e retarded by it. The 
