NOTES

Abstract

IN reference to our article (vol. xviii. p. 235) referring to the very unsatisfactory manner in which the publications of the Geological Survey are produced and distributed, we have received several communications professing to indicate the causes to which this unfortunate condition of affairs is to be attributed, and suggesting means by which it can be remedied. It would scarcely be within our province—even f it were in our power—to point out the particular departments or the individual officials with whom the responsibility for bringing about this almost perfect deadlock rests. We do, however, feel ourselves called upon to give expression to that dissatisfaction which is so widely felt in scientific circles, both in England and abroad, at the slowness with which the survey is carried on, the dilatoriness with which its results are published, the exorbitant prices charged for the maps and memoirs, and the parsimonious manner in which they are distributed. And in doing so we are acting uo less in the interest of the overworked and often underpaid officers of the survey, whose efforts are frequently wasted, and whose patient labours fail to obtain proper recognition, through the neglect of the publishing department in making known the results of their work.