Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/53

 FRIDAY. JANUARY IC,

��COMMENT AND CRITICISM. The joint committee of the two housus of congress, appointed to coDsider the relatioos lo each other of the different soieatiQc bureaus of the government, not heiug readj- to report wheu called upon last December, bad its time extended to Jao. 15, and has meanwhile kept its deliberations and couclusioDS absolutely secret. All that is known is that it has taken a mass of testimony, and that thi^ heads of bu- reaus concerned have had ample opportunity to render the committee all needful iuforma- Uou, and to express their own views, most of which are well known. The committee, as our readers know, asked also the advice of the Nalionai academy of sciences (to which body one of its own members, Col. Lyman, be- longs) ; and the text of the academy's report is published by us to-day on another page. We gave, some weeks ago, an intimation of its drift.

le report gives a brief account of the lod in which such bureaus are oi^anized in other countries ; discusses at some length the character of the work done by the coast and geodetic and the geological surveys, especially in those points where their provinces are similar, pointing out that two distinct and independent trigonometric surveys of the United Stales are now in process of execution : distinguishes be- tween the military and meteorological work of the signal-service, and recommends their com- plete separation : indicates the danger of duplication of work by the coast-survey and hydrographic office, bnt is not prepared to rec- ommend that the latter be detached in any way from the control of the navy department, nor that the hydrt^aphic work of the coast-snr- forty years conducted so satisfac- \y, be separated flrom that oi^anization, but

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��suggoats the hncB on which it thinks the coast- survey should work; lays down the principle that the government should not undertake any work which can be equally well done by the enterprise of individual investigators, and that such work should be confined to what wilt ' promote the general welfare ' of the country ; urges the importance of a proper extension of the trigonometrical survey of the United States; and, finally, recommends the estab- lishment either of a department of science, or of a mixed commission of nine members, — two of them scienliflc civilians to be appointed by the president for six years, two scientific men from the arniy and navy similarly ap- pointed, three heads of the principal scientific bureaus, together with the president of the national academy, and the secretary of the Smithsonian institution. To the department of science, or to the supervision of this com- mission, it would transfer the coast-survey, the geological survey, and the meteorological bureau, and, in establishing a physical labora- tory, add to it a bureau of weights and meas- ures, the functions of which are now i>erformed by the coast-survey. The province of the proposed commission is amply defined.

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��No more important measure, aifecting the interests of science in this country, has been proposed since the chartering of the National academy of sciences with the funciioua of an advisory board to government depaitments. Whether the joint committee, and after them congress, adopt the suggestions of the academy, improve upon them, or utterly discard them, the principle upon which the government should conduct the scientific bureaus which it must of necessity maintain — the principle of proper co-ordination — has been struck ; and at some time, if not now, it will prevail. No one who has watched the extraordinary and yet healthy growth of the geological survey since its re-organization five years ago — a re-

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