270 
PALEONTOLOGICAL GEOLOGY 
our student minds. A sort of unsuspected employment bureau 
function draws us in. Scholarships, or fellowships, at public or 
private expense, bait the best of us. Prospect of a glorious and 
successful employment by the Government or by a State, proves to 
be the thoroughfare that leads to a private corporation employment 
on its own terms. Then, a three-years’ contract at low wage, 
followed by another, appears to have been too often the reality 
that awakened the geologist. 
At last, however, a geologist may work for himself. Even 
should his field-work have not been very instructive, or have been 
on much narrower and more broken lines than he had hoped for; 
even if he know little of the underlying problems in fact; yet at 
least he is in position to pretend that he knows by experience and 
knows it all. It is a very poor geologist who has no friends. 
The promoter of new corporations needs his hard earned reputa¬ 
tion for aid in or to shield some new promotions plan. Liberal 
payment is promised for a “favorable geologic report,” and a 
premium, if the public takes stock enough in the new company. 
The way to opulence and independent effort appears to lie through 
an open door. The saying of the people, that thousands get rich 
by taking chances and some become millionaires, is the largest and 
shallowest bonanza of them all. 
Over the doorway, there is now posted a “blue sky” law. Com¬ 
missioners stand, key in hand at a second doorway just beyond 
the first. Oh yes, they have all heard of those geologists and 
mining engineers long ago. The Government employs the best of 
them for $5 to $10 a day, at real geologic work. Largest corpor¬ 
ations pay $100 to $200 a month for good true workers of that 
kind. This item, $30,000 a year for a geologic expert in the new 
company’s plans and application for license to sell stock, looks a 
little prodigal to the Commissioners. The fatted calf was killed 
and eaten years ago, they have heard. What remains is some 
small poultry and prodigals are not now admitted to the luncheon. 
“And Peter said: T go fishing’.” It will now be remembered 
by all good geologists that Saint Peter did not fish long, but soon 
went back to his Master’s work. And, who is our master in this 
case? That is just what I said to begin with, that there are some 
things not seen clearly. Perhaps some geologists were sold when, 
as students, they “took stock” in a university’s geology depart- 
