Abstract
GEOLOGY is a branch of Science which specially commends itself to the fostering care of Governments, paternal or otherwise. More particularly is this true of a new country, where, in the imagination of the settlers, untold wealth has yet to be dug out of the earth, if only they could discover in what quarter best to look for it. Accordingly, in not a few of our colonies and in a number of the States of the Union, geological and mineralogical surveys have long been at work, originated and continued at the public expense. In most cases, of course, the first aim of such surveys, and in fact the very justification of their existence in the eyes of practical and by no means scientific legislators, is the finding of mineral wealth. If they were begun from the lofty scientific point of view they would fail, and deservedly. But when a really able scientific man gets the charge of one of them, and has at the same time that mother-wit and knowledge of the world which scientific men so often lack, he may not only attend to the rigid economics of his paymasters, but do great service to geology. His aim is to show the public that a strictly scientific basis is the only one on which a mineral survey to be of any value can be conducted. And this is so obvious that if it is simply and clearly stated, it for the most part commends itself to the common-sense of public men. In laying this necessary basis and then in carrying out the survey for economic minerals the geologist may both pave the way for an enormous increase to his country's industry and wealth, and add much of permanent interest and importance to the common stock of geological knowledge.
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G., A. The Geological Survey of Indiana . Nature 8, 228–229 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/008228a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/008228a0