Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/598

580 Its researches tend to increase the value of public lands, and to render the mineral industries of the nation more surely remunerative, productive, and definite. These industries already yield not far from five hundred millions of dollars annually, and accurate knowledge concerning them is essential to intelligent government. For, one function of government is to levy taxes; taxation, in the last analysis, falls upon the resources of a country, and it can not be wisely adjusted unless the resources are well known. A government can not even be truly economical unless its taxes are laid intelligently. Furthermore, the Geological Survey deals with the topography of the country, and prepares detailed maps of great utility. If such maps had been available during the late civil war, our armies would have been spared many difficulties, and the Government would have avoided much expense.

The Patent-Office also comes under the Interior Department; and here again we find great scientific activity, and a large corps of scientific experts. Their duties appear simple enough when superficially stated, but if studied closely they reveal the unexpected fact that the Government really has become the arbiter in doubtful questions of scientific priority. This is especially true in applied chemistry and electricity, and the controversies over the telephone may be cited as cases in point.

Of the other departments of the executive, little need be said. The Post-Office often needs chemical work on paper, fibers, inks, or other supplies. Questions often arise concerning the electric lighting of public buildings; and even the State Department sometimes has to handle matters of international science, as, for example, in the organization of the late conference relative to a common prime meridian of longitude. The Smithsonian Institution need not be considered, inasmuch as it is maintained by a private endowment, of which the United States is merely the trustee; but the National Museum, which is in charge of the Smithsonian regents, may be cited as the repository of valuable public treasures, and as the place in which the material resources of the country are visibly illustrated.

Enough has been said in the foregoing pages, though very incompletely, to indicate what an amount of scientific investigation and experiment our Government is obliged to require. In addition to these labors of an immediately necessary character, other scientific work is frequently carried on at Government expense, which aims at the discovery of truth for its own sake, apart from its direct applications. For examples, the transit of Venus and solar eclipse expeditions may be named, as well as the work carried on by the Bureau of Ethnology. In the latter organization, by Government aid, valuable data are saved which would otherwise be lost to science; and this is as it should be. Too often, in our busy, every-day life, we forget that there can be no applied science unless there is some pure science to apply; and that the larger problems of science, including much of material value to