Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/64

 Impossible to directly restrict or coalrol these scien- tific operations by law. The general purpoBe of the work may be formulated In the statutes, and the operations may be limited by the appropriations made therefor, and this is as far as the statute itself can properly go; for, if the operations Ihemselves could be formulated in law, the facts would already be known, and the Investigation would be unnecea- sary. It being impossible by statute to control or restrict the lines of InvestigatiOD, as above shown, there Is yet a control of llie official personul organiza- tion which can proj«rly be eserciaed by statutory provision; and a further control, superior to the im- mediate orgaolzation prosecuting the work, may be properly exercised in relation lo the financial opera- tions in the payment of employees, and In the pnr- chajie, use, and custody of public property, and the supervision of accounts.

I beg permission to set forth certain facts, which, I think, sliouid be u«ed as a guide In the establishment of such official organization and superior control. In the first place, the investigations prosecuted b; all of these scientific institutions are in their nature in- ter-related and Interdependent. The success of one Is depeudent, to a lai^ extent, upon the success of the others] and, if at any time in the correlated investi- gations prosecuted by the general government any one branch fails in its department, the other branches suffer therefrom lo a greater or less extent.

pDrexamplc:geodetic operations carried on through- out the world, and having for their purpose the de- termination of the figure of the earth, were for a long time prosecuted by refined trigonometric methods; but, as the work progres.sed, the problem was found to be more complex than was at first supposed, and elaborate gravity determinations were added to trigo- nometric methods. And it tias quite lately been dis- covered that trigonometric and gravity methods must yet be supplemented by the determination of the geologic structure of lands, especially of mountains and mountain systems. Thus it has been found that the geographer cannot accomplish his work without appealing to the geologist for his imowledge. On the other hand, it has been found in the study of struc- tural geology — and by that is meant the plan upon which the rocks composing the lands of a country are arranged — that It cannot be clearly understood and explained without the facts of geodesy. Sound geo- logic research, therefore, must prepress hand In band with sound geodetic research.

Again: in the prosecution of geodetic research, the parties thus engaged determine the exact position in latitude, longitude, and altitude, of many points upon the surface of the earth. In the prosecution of a geo- logic survey of the same territory, these same points must also be known; but, more than that, their num- ber must be vastly multiplied, so that a map may be constructed setting forth the latitude, longitude, and altitude of all portions of the country surveyed. Where the geodetic survey establishes but hundreds ot polnta, the geologic survey must have millions of points established.

Again; the points to be used in the geodetic survey

��must necessarily be selected for that purpose, A gen- eral reconnolssance of the country over which such a survey is carried must tje made, and the materials collected for at least a skeleton map. Thus it is that a skeleton map Is necessary for a geodetic surrey, and a completed map for the geologic survey. In like manner it can be shown that the relations between geodetic and geologic work are manifold, and, still further, that the geodetic work and the geologic work have a great variety of connections with the other scientific works prosecuted by the general gov- ernmenL It would require a volume to set forth all these relations, and to show how completely the suc- cess of one is dependent upon the success of all.

It will thus be seen that the official organizations for these institutions should be co-ordinated, that they may work together and aid cacli other; and, further, as each is interested to a greater or less ex- tent in the operations of the other, the oi^anizatlon should he. such that one shall not be compelled to do that which is the proper function of another, and that no one shall be permitted to eucroacli upon ths functions of another. As long as the several scien- tific commissions and bureaus of the general govern- ment are distributed through all the departments of the government, — one in the war department, anoth- er in the navy, another in the interior, another in the treasury, etc., — each bureau must necessarily, to a large extent, be autonomous: they must t>e self-gov- erned, for it is a practical impossibility for any secre- tary of a general department to make such a study of the methods of scientific research as would warrant him in attempting their control. Hence these insti- tutions have in the past been lo a great degree auton- omous, and must, under the same plan, be.

If the statements thus briefly made ai follows that the first guiding principle official organization of the scientific work is as fol- lows: The acientifie iimtUutiims of tAs govemmxnt. sfciuld be piateA uadfr one general manitgement.

Again: as a necessity, scientific Investigation most be controlled by the facts discovered from year lo year, and from montii to month, and from day to day. The operations of Investigation, therefore, can only be controlled by the men who are actually pep- forming the work. For example: the director of the geological survey cannot possibly lay out the work for his assistants in detail. He can only set forth in a general way the object to be reached, the general methods to be pursued; ind such plans must be held open lo revision from time to time as the facts discov- ered hy the investigators themselves may demand. He must therefore hold himaeif always in commu- nication with Ills assistants, and ever be ready to entertain their suggestions; and there is always a probability that he will err more in the direction ot rejecting wise suggestions Ihan accepting unwise plans.

It is thus that, to a large extent, the plans of the work prosecuted by an organization for scientific re- search must originate with the experts and specialists who are themselves engogedinthe investigation; and

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