394 
GEOLOGY IN BOLSHEVIK LAND 
American Geologist planted the Stars and Stripes on the needle 
rock at the top it flashed across his mind that by irony of the 
Fates a countryman might some day reign from the sacred Throne 
of the Romanoffs. Little did he dream that in his own lifetime a 
common, ordinary New Yorker would be happily ensconced 
therein. 
War, revolution, nationalization of wealth, and famine sweep 
over the land yet the geologist’s faith in the final outcome never 
wavers. To the earth-student, with his global way of looking at 
things, Bolshevik is not a hated term. It does not mean to him 
the same thing that it does to potentate and money changer. The 
torch of the Science Goddess still burns brightly in the home of 
the Slav. 
Through it all the geologist dwells not for a moment on what 
the Russian might think of him. But Professor Sederholm of 
Helsingfors tells us in a recent press statement: “To a certain 
degree the Soviet Government, in spite of its known hatred of 
the ‘intellectuals’ has favored those scientists who have been 
willing, or forced, to serve it as specialists. There is in this 
State where equality is a watchword, an order of precedence, 
with a graded scale of thirty-five degrees, of which one is the 
lowest. Civil Engineers are reckoned in the thirty-fourth class, 
and certain scientists, as, for instance, the geologists, in the 
highest one, belonging to the category of ‘learned specialist’. 
Their wages are, of course, falling, as everything else is, because 
of the rapidly continued depreciation of the money, but at a 
time when a cord of wood costs 70,000 Soviet rubles, they receive 
7200 rubles a month, or 86,500 rubles a year. 
“Moreover, the scientist got the special ‘scientific ration,’ or 
outchonnyipayock, which was a little greater than the daily hun¬ 
ger ration of other citizens. When traveling the specialists could 
even be allowed a ‘Red Guard’s ration’ which was, however, not 
always given to them, even in places where stores of food existed. 
“The news which we ’ get about the life of the struggling 
scientists of Russia awakens sentiments of two kinds: Compas¬ 
sion for their extremely difficult situation, and admiration for 
what they have been able to perform even during such circum¬ 
stances. One of their greatest sufferings come from the isola- 
