Geological Work in the United States

Abstract

THE papers dealt with under this heading are merely representative of a large amount of literature devoted to the understanding of the ground on which the United States have become founded. Whether from an educational or from a more economic point of view, this wide territory continues to be actively explored, and the existence of State surveys, side by side with that centred in Washington, testifies to the value set upon geological research. The thirtieth and thirty-first annual reports of the U.S. Geological Survey, issued by the director, G. Otis Smith, in 1909 and 1910, show how the survey has often preceded its topographers in the field. These reports now indicate the main features of administration and publication during a fiscal year, the sientific papers being wisely issued in a separate form. J. M. Nickles supplies bibliographies of North American geology for 1908 and 1909 (Bulletins o9 and 444), with useful subject-indexes.