Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/427

Rh best methods for promoting our spiritual welfare; but it kindly, and in a most paternal spirit, undertakes to show us the true path, of intellectual and economic salvation. Formerly it was religion that could not thrive without state support; now it is science. Formerly it was the priest who undertook the solution of all difficult questions and who stood forth as the visible embodiment of authority; to-day it is the director of an official scientific bureau. In former days it was said that all roads led to Rome; to-day in the United States we are rapidly approaching a state of things under which all the paths of science at least will lead to Washington. There it is that a generous Congress—generous with the people's money—votes rich appropriations for work, the nature and scope of which not one member in twenty understands. There it is that the authority resides that can hire scientific labor in every part of the country, and provide a profitable market for all researches, observations, and theories that fall into line with the main doctrines of official science.

When evils reach a certain height they are apt to attract an attention and awaken a resistance that were lacking in their earlier and less threatening stages. A bill, a copy of which is before us, reported by the "Joint Commission on the Coast and Geodetic, the Geological and Hydrographic Surveys and Signal Service," seems to indicate that, as regards the Geological Survey, the point of danger is recognized to have been reached. It bears as its title, "A Bill restricting the Work and Publications of the Geological Survey and for other Purposes." The proposition is to confine the survey for the future to strictly geological work, such as may be necessary for the preparation of a good geological map of the country. According to the terms of the bill, it is not in future to expend any money for paleontological work, "except for the collection, classification, and proper care of fossils and other material." It is not to undertake the general discussion of geological theories, "nor shall it compose, compile, or prepare for publication monographs or bulletins, or other books except an annual report, which shall embrace only the transactions of the bureau for the year and the results thereof." It is further provided that in future "all printing and engraving done for the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department, and the Signal Service, shall be estimated for separately and appropriated in detail for each of said bureaus."

Such in substance is the bill. In support of its provisions the chairman of the commission, Mr. H. C. Herbert, gives a summary view of the present extent and variety of the work undertaken by the Geological Survey and of its cost to the country. Taking the latter point first, he shows that, leaving the cost of publications out of the question, the present annual expenditure on the survey amounts to something over half a million dollars, or eighty thousand dollars more than is expended by Great Britain, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Belgium, Norway, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Finland, Canada, Victoria, and Japan taken together. These other countries understand by a Geological Survey, a survey undertaken for the purpose of establishing the main geological features of the national territory; and for this purpose they severally find a moderate expenditure sufficient. In this country a different theory has apparently prevailed. Here a Geological Survey is a bureau invested with authority, and provided with funds, to undertake not only the widest possible investigations of a geological kind, but also minute researches in paleontology, paleobotany, and lithology, together with the study of a variety of economic questions touching on the processes of metallurgy and the general