ent, but ballots of preference had been received from seventy-two Fellows, in accordance with which the organization was completed by the election of President, James Hall; Vice-Presidents, James D. Dana and Alexander Winchell; Secretary, John J. Stevenson; Treasurer, Henry S. Williams; Councillors, John S. Newberry, John W. Powell and Charles H. Hitchcock.

The matter of publication was discussed at great length, but no definite decision could be reached, and a committee was appointed to consider the whole question, with instructions to present a report at the summer meeting. Another committee was appointed to prepare a permanent constitution, to be presented at the next meeting.

The Advisory Committee on Publication, another name for Professor W J McGee, made an elaborate investigation of the whole question of publication and,in August at Toronto, presented the report, accompanied by a printed example of the form recommended. This report was adopted and, at the close of the following meeting, Dr. McGee was chosen as first Editor that the recommendations might be carried out faithfully. Our Bulletin, which marked a new stage in scientific publications, owes its excellence of form and accuracy of method to his indefatigable persistence. His determination to secure exactness in all respects proved not wholly satisfactory to many of us, but, before he demitted his charge, the justice of his requirements was conceded on all sides. The discipline to which the Fellows of this Society were subjected by the first Editor has served its purpose, and editors of other scientific publications have found their labors lightened and their hands strengthened in efforts to produce similar reforms elsewhere.

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

Our net membership at the close of the first year was 187. The new constitution placed severer restrictions upon membership by requiring a nine-tenths vote for election, the ballot being by correspondence and shared in by all the Fellows. This has kept the number within reasonable limits, and we now have 237 Fellows, our roll including almost all of those, who, by strict construction of our constitution, are quali. fied for membership. Owing to the rigid administration of our affairs by Professor Fairchild and Dr. White, who have piloted us for eight years, our financial condition is satisfactory, and the income from the permanent fund now goes far toward covering the cost of administration.

Throughout, the Society has held closely to investigation; the recondite problems, those of little interest to many, of no interest to most, are those which have held the attention of our Fellows-work in pure rather than in applied sciences; there has been no trenching upon the field of the mining engineer. As a storehouse of fact and of broad, just generalization the volumes of our Bulletin are excelled by those of no similar publication.

We close our first decade justly gratified by success and full of hope for the future. Some of those who led us and gave us reputation at the beginning are no longer with us; Hall, Dana and Winchell, the first three Presidents, passed away in reverse order; Cope, Cook, Sterry-Hunt, Newberry and a few others have gone from us, but the Society retains its membership with changes unusually small, showing no ordinary degree of physical force and esprit du corps on the part of its Fellows. As we look back

we recognize how far this Society has been of service to us as men; in not a few instances misunderstandings have been removed and coldness or suspicion has been replaced by personal friendship. American geologists are no longer a disorderly lot of irregulars marching in awkward squads, but form a reasonably compact body, though as individuals they may owe allegiance to Canada, the United States, Mexico or Brazil. Every one of us has felt the inspiriting influence of personal contact.

But our 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. To retain the respect of the community and to retain influence for good we must be able to justify the existence of a society devoted to investigation as distinguished from application. question Cui bono? will be asked, and the answer cannot be avoided.

The

This is a utilitarian age-not utilitarian as understood by those who bemoan the decay of æsthetic taste; or of those who feel that in the passing of Aristotle and Seneca there has come the loss of intellectual refinement; or of those others who bewail the degeneracy of a generation which has not produced a Kant, a Newton, an Aristotle, a Laplace, a Humboldt or an Agassiz; all regarding the decadence as due to the degrading influence of material development and overpowering commercial interests.

These pessimists stand at a poor point of view, where the angle of vision is narrowed by many lateral projections. One may say, without fear of successful contradiction, that, in so far as actual knowledge is concerned, students of our day receiving graduate degrees in the more advanced universities stand on a somewhat higher plane,

each in his own group, than did the celebrated men just named. The student now reaches beyond where they ended, and still is at only the threshold; for, in most instances, years of labor are required of him before he can receive recognition as an efficient co-worker. Men towering far above their fellows and covering the whole field of knowledge will never be known again. Kant, Newton, Humboldt stand out from their fellows as sharply as lighthouses on a level shore; but there are many Kants, Newtons and Humboldts to-day. Prior to the last seventy-five years the field of actual knowledge was insignificant and a man possessing large powers of observation grasped the whole. Seventy-five years ago one man was expected to cover the whole field of natural science in an American college. Should any man pretend to-day to possess such ability he would expose himself to ridicule.

It may be true that this century has given to the world no great philosopherthat is, no great philosopher after the old pattern. But one must not forget that philosophy has to face a difficulty which was unknown in the last century. The unrestrained soaring of philosophers into the far-away regions of mysticism is no longer possible, for facts abound and the knowledge which is abroad in the land must be considered in any well constructed system. Some have maintained, if not in direct statement, certainly in effect, that study of material things unfits one for metaphysical investigation. Undoubtedly it would hamper him in some kinds of metaphysical research, as it would fetter him with a respect for actualities, but it would fit him well for other kinds. Aristotle, Kant and, in our own time, McCosh and Spencer attained to high position as philosophers and in each case possessed remarkable knowledge in respect to material things.

The assertion of lost intellectual refinement and of depraved æsthetic taste is but the wail for an abandoned cult. It is but a variation of the familiar song which has sounded down the generations. The world was going to destruction when copper ceased to be legal tender, as well as when Latin ceased to be the language of university lectures; art disappeared when men ceased idealizing and began to paint nature as it is; religion was doomed to contempt when the Bible was translated into the vulgar tongue; and the pillars of the earth were removed when the American Republic was established.

But in a proper sense this is a utilitarian age. Everywhere the feeling grows that the earth is for man, for the rich and for the poor alike; that those things only are good which benefit mankind by elevating the mental or physical conditions. Until the present century the importance of the purely intellectual side of man was overestimated by scholars, and matters connected with his material side were contemned. With our century the reaction was too great, for even educated men sneered at abstract studies as absurdities, while they thought material things alone worthy of investigation. But the balance is steadying itself, and at each oscillation the index approaches more closely to the mean between the so-called intellectual and material sides. Devotees of pure science no longer regard devotees of applied science as rather distant relations who have taken up with low-born associates.

There appears, at first glance, to be very little connection between great manufacturing interests, on one hand, and stone pecking at the roadside or the counting of striæ 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. About twenty years ago one of our Fellows began to give the results of

reconnaissance studies made during vacations. These concerned certain fault lines, and the notes included studies upon coal beds and other matters of economic interest involved in the faults. The coal beds were all bought up; railroads were constructed; mines were operated; towns were built; a great population was supplied with work at good wages, and many men were enriched. But according to the latest information no one has offered to re-imburse the geologist his expenses, nor has any paper in the whole region suggested that the geologist had anything to do with bringing about the development.

Geological work in this as in other lands was originally vacation work, but eventually the investigations became too extensive and the problems too broad for the usually limited means of the students. Meanwhile, it became manifest, as in the case just referred to, that important economic results were almost certain to follow publication of matters discovered by geologists, so that men interested in economics were ready to assist in securing State aid to advance geological work. As one of our Fellows remarked the other day, economic geology has been the breastwerk behind which scientific geology has been developed by State aid.

Ducatel's reconnaissance proved the importance of Maryland's coal field and the survey was ordered; the Pennsylvania Geological Society discussed coal fields until the Legislature gave the State a survey; the geologists of New York promised to settle, finally, the question of the occurrence of coal within the State; and so in many other States.

The United States Geological Survey had a somewhat different origin, for the economic side did not attain importance until a late period. Soon after the annexation of California the necessity for railroad communication with the Pacific became appar

ent, and Congress ordered exploration of several lines across the Rocky Mountain region. At that time, the early 'fifties, the perplexities of American geologists had reached a maximum. Most of the old State surveys had come to a close, rich in economic results and still richer in problems to be solved only by elaborate investigation, too extended and too costly for those days. The observations made by Wislezenus and army officers in New Mexico, by Fremont and Stansbury farther north in the Rocky Mountain and Plateau regions, as well as by Culbertson and Norwood in the Dakota country, had stirred the curiosity and awakened the interest of geologists everywhere. Strong pressure was brought to bear on the Secretary of War for the appointment of geologists to positions on the several parties. The efforts were successful and the appointments were made, though in most instances the geologists were physicians and appointed as acting surgeons in the army. This was an important advance in scientific work, for, almost without exception, exploring parties under the War Department from that time were accompanied by naturalists. The Civil War brought the Western work to a close, but when peace returned it was taken up again and geology was recognized as a necessary part of it, until at last the fragmentary works were placed in one organization and the Survey established as it now exists.

In all of the later geological surveys the element of economics entered more largely into consideration and was emphasized in the legislative enactments. Men recognized that geological investigation had led to the discovery of laws, most important from the economic standpoint, and they were anxious to have the knowledge utilized in a broad way.

Looking over the history of the old surveys one sees clearly that their origin was due solely to a desire for solution of prob

lems in pure science. The credit for the economic outcome of the scientific work is due to the geologist alone, to whom the appropriations were given, practically as a gift. The Legislators soothed their consciences by lofty speeches respecting the duty of the Commonwealth to foster the study of Nature, but they generally had an aside to be utilized as a justification before their constituents" especially when there is a very reasonable chance that something of value will be discovered to the advantage of our Commonwealth."

The New York survey had for its possible outcome the determination of the coal area. The work was completed with great exactness, for it proved that the State contains no coal area whatever. Though only negative in results for the State, this survey has proved of incalculable service to the country at large, for it first elaborated the lower and middle Paleozoic sections; the scientific work, continued along the biological line, defined accurately the vertical limits of fossils and provided means for removal of difficulties where the succession is incomplete and for tentative correlation in widely separated localities, an apparatus whose usefulness cannot be overestimated from an economic standpoint.

If the man who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before be a public benefactor, what shall be said of the geologist who turns a desert into a garden? This was done by the first survey of New Jersey, which differentiated and mapped the marls of that State, giving a complete discussion of their nature and value. Great areas of the 'whites and barrens' have been converted not into mere farm lands, but into richly productive garden spots. In later years the second survey, now almost forty years old, did, as it is still doing, admirable work along the same lines; the study of structural geology gave a clue to the causes of restrained drainage, and in not a few in

stances showed that relief from malaria could be obtained with unsuspected ease, and that many miles of noxious swamp could be converted into lands well fitted for residence.

The first survey of Pennsylvania was purely scientific in inception and execution. Economic questions had little of interest for its head, and in the work their place was very subordinate to those in pure science; yet the outcome was inevitable. The study of the Appalachian folds and the discovery of the steeper northwesterly dip revealed the structure of the anthracite region and made it possible to determine the relations of the anthracite beds; the vast extent of the bituminous area and the importance of the Pittsburg coal bed were ascertained during the search for facts to explain the origin of the coal measures; the ores of the central part of the State were studied with rigorous attention to detail that the problem of their origin might be solved. But these and other scientific studies brought out a mass of facts which were seen at once to possess immense importance, and the reports were published broadcast. New industries were established; old ones, previously uncertain, became certain and developed prodigiously; the coal and iron interests moved at once to the front, so that, within two or three years after the survey ended, Tariff' became the burning political question throughout the State. The results of the second survey were even more remarkable in their influence upon the development of the Commonwealth and the increased comfort of the population.

Among the earliest results of the first survey of Michigan was the determination of the value of the salt lands and the announcement of iron ore in the Upper Peninsula. The successors to this survey, but under the United States supervision, made studies of numerous localities and determined the excellence of the ores. Un

questionably, the importance of the deposit became known to capitalists very largely through the reports of this survey, though at that time economic geology had no charms for its head. Much of the enormous development of the Lake Superior iron region was due to the influence of the later survey between 1869 and 1873.

The first Ohio survey, made sixty years ago, was at greater disadvantage than the Pennsylvania survey, yet in the first year the coal area was defined and during the second the geologists determined the distribution of the several limestones and sandstones which, as building stones, have become so important. The second survey was made effective at once by the tracing and identification of the Hocking Valley coal, which brought into the State a vast amount of new capital and changed the face of a great district. The third survey determined the distribution of oil and gas, the relations of the coal beds and the characteristics of the clay deposits in such fashion as to remake the manufacturing interests of the State.

The Mesabi and Vermilion 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, discovered the Mesabi ores; a few years later Whittlesey, after a detailed examination farther west, predicted the discovery of similar ores, a discovery actually made in 1866 by Eames, who was then State Geologist and engaged in studying the Vermilion range. Though not utilized at once, these announcements were not forgotten and systematic exploration was begun in 1875, when the need of high-grade ores at low prices made necessary the opening of new areas. Almost at once, the State Geological Survey determined the extent of the ore-bearing region,