Part 21

The primary aim of the Geological Survey is geologic, whether directed by authority of law toward the “examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain,” toward the preparation of the authorized “reports upon general and economic geology and paleontology,” of the “geologic map of the United States,” or of the “report on the mineral resources of the United States,” or toward the “continuation of the investigation of the mineral resources of Alaska” or “chemical and physical researches relating to the geology of the United States.” The spirit and the purpose of the Survey’s work in all these fields are not believed to have materially changed from those of the founders of the science in America. From time to time too much emphasis may have appeared to be laid upon applied geology as contrasted with pure science, yet the report of the National Academy to Congress in terms placed the stress upon economic resources and referred to paleontology as “necessarily connected” with general and economic geology. The practical purpose of geologic research under Government auspices must be recognized by the administrator, whether he be the paleontologist like Walcott, the philosopher like Powell, or the mining geologist like King. That the task of steering the true course is no new problem can be seen from the statement of Owen[105] written 70 years ago, and these words describe conditions of Government geological work even to-day:

Scientific researches, which to some may seem purely speculative and curious, are essential as preliminaries to these practical results. Further than such necessity dictates, they have not been pushed, except as subordinate and incidental, and chiefly at such periods as, under the ordinary requirements of public service, might be regarded as leisure moments; so that the contributions to science thus incidentally afforded, and which a liberal policy forbade to neglect, may be considered, in a measure, a voluntary offering, tendered at little or no additional expense to the department.

The increased attention given to mineral resources has been a matter of gradual growth. Mr. King early organized a Division of Mining Geology with Messrs. Pumpelly, Emmons, and Becker as geologists in charge, to whom were assigned the collection of mineral statistics for the Tenth Census. These Survey geologists and Director King himself held appointments as special agents of the Census Bureau, and on the staff selected for this work appear the names of T. B. Brooks, Edward Orton, T. C. Chamberlin, Eugene A. Smith, George Little, J. R. Proctor, R. D. Irving, N. S. Shaler, John Hays Hammond, Bailey Willis, and G. H. Eldridge, indicating the extent to which the supervision of these inquiries was placed in the hands of economic geologists. This procedure was reverted to by Director Walcott and in the last ten years has become a well-established policy, the statistics of annual production of all the important mineral products being under the charge of geologists, as best qualified to comprehend the resources of the country. Another of these special assistants in 1880 was Albert Williams, Jr., who became the first chief of the Division of Mineral Resources, in 1882. The study of ore deposits, which may be said to have begun with the King Survey, was inspired by King’s own appreciation of the broad geologic relations of the distribution of mineral wealth and by the detailed studies of individual mining districts by his associates, “based upon facts accurately determined in the light of modern geology.”

Geological surveys have been prosecuted in Alaska since 1895, and in the last few years the annual appropriation for the work has been the same as that made for the expenses of the whole Survey in the first year of its history. The Division of Alaskan Mineral Resources is in fact a geological survey in itself, except that it shares in the administrative machinery of the larger organization and has the advantage of the cooperation of the scientific specialists of the Survey as they may be needed to supplement its own force. All the investigations in this distant part of the country represent the Geological Survey at its best, for here the organization’s long experience in the Western States can be applied to most effective and helpful work on the frontier, where the geologist and topographer in their exploration do not always follow the prospector but often precede him. Undoubtedly no greater factor has contributed to the development of Alaskan resources than this pioneer work of the Federal Survey, yet the work has also contributed notable additions to the sciences of geology and geography.

The first duty laid upon the Director of the Geological Survey in the law of 1879 was “the classification of the public lands,” and this phrase undoubtedly expressed the idea of the committee of the National Academy. The same legislation, however, contained provision for the further consideration by a commission of the classification and valuation of the public lands, as also recommended by the National Academy. Thus the decision of Director King that the classification intended by Congress was scientific and was intended for general information and not to aid the Land Office in the disposition of land by sale or otherwise was really based upon the deliberate opinion of the Public Lands Commission, of which he was a member, that classification would seriously impede rapid settlement of the unoccupied lands. Nearly forty years later those who are intrusted with the land-classification work of the Geological Survey recognize this familiar argument, which undoubtedly had much more force in that earlier stage of the utilization of the Nation’s resources of land.[106] The conception of land classification as a business policy on the part of the Government as a landed proprietor belongs rather to this day of more intensive development. At present current public-land legislation calls for highest use, and hence official investigation of natural values and possibilities must precede disposition. This type of mineral and hydrographic classification of public lands has been in progress in increasing amount since 1906, so that now the Geological Survey is the kind of scientific adviser to the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of the General Land Office that may have been contemplated by the National Academy of Sciences in 1878. It is plain, however, to everyone at all conversant with Western conditions that the recent land-classification surveys in Wyoming, for instance—detailed geologic surveys which form the basis for the valuation of public coal lands in 40–acre units—would have possessed no utility in 1871, when the coal-land law was passed but when the demand for railroad fuel had just begun.

The land-classification idea is of course the basis of the National forest and irrigation movements. The laws of 1888 and 1896, which mark the beginning of active endorsement by Congress of these conservation movements, placed upon the Survey the duties of examining reservoir sites and forest reserves respectively. The earlier of these laws began the investigation of the water resources of the country, which is still an important phase of the Survey’s activity, and led to the creation of an independent organization—the Reclamation Service. It is easy to trace the beginnings of Federal reclamation of arid lands in the pioneer work of Powell, whose report in 1878 on the arid region of the United States was the first adequate statement of the problem of largest use of these lands in terms broader than those of individualistic endeavor. For years, however, Powell’s appeal for Congressional consideration of this National task was like the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

In a somewhat similar way the forestry surveys under the Geological Survey helped in the organization of a separate bureau—now the Forest Service. The other important Federal bureau tracing direct relationship to the Survey is the Bureau of Mines, established in 1910, which continued the investigations in mining technology specifically provided for by Congress for six years under the Geological Survey but in some degree begun in the early days of the Survey under Directors King and Powell.

Another equally important organization of a public nature, though not a Federal bureau, traces its beginnings to the Geological Survey: the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, which now exercises so potent an influence over geologic investigation, had its origin in the official work of the Geological Survey’s Division of Chemical and Physical Research, and its personnel was at first largely recruited from the Survey. The highly original experimental work of this laboratory has extended far beyond the scope of the Survey’s work—at least far beyond the scope possible with the Federal funds available—yet most of the results of these investigations may eventually come under even a strict construction of the language used in the Survey’s appropriation “for chemical and physical researches relating to the geology of the United States.”

The topographic work of the present Survey continues with constant refinement of standards and economy of methods the work of the earlier organizations. The primary purpose of these topographic surveys is to provide the bases for geologic maps, yet these topographic maps, which cover 40 per cent of the area of the United States, are used in every type of civil engineering as well as by the public generally. The annual distribution by sale of half a million of these maps is an index of their value to the people.

The hot discussion that was waged for years on the question of military versus scientific administration of topographic surveys is in striking contrast with the present concentration of all the topographic mapping under the Geological Survey in those areas where it may best serve the needs of the Army. In 1916 Congress specifically recognized the possibility of greater cooperation of this kind, both in the appropriation made to the Geological Survey and in a special appropriation made to the War Department. For a number of years indeed special military information had been contributed to the Army by the Survey topographers, but since March 26, 1917, every Geological Survey topographer has worked exclusively on the program of military surveys laid down by the General Staff of the Army, and the places of some of the 44 Survey topographers now in France as engineer officers are filled by 34 other reserve engineer officers detailed by order of the Secretary of War to the Director of the Geological Survey to assist in this military mapping and to receive instruction fitting them in turn for topographic service in France.

The contribution of this civilian service to the military operations in the present emergency forms a fitting conclusion to this review of a century of Government surveys. At present 215 members of the Geological Survey are in uniform, 107 as engineer officers, two of whom are on the staff of the American Commanding General in France. In the war work carried on in the United States the Survey’s contribution is by no means limited to military mapping: the geologists are also mobilized for meeting war needs, assisting in developing new sources of the essential war minerals, in speeding up production of mineral products, in collecting information for the purchasing officers both of our own and of the Allied governments, in coöperating with the constructing quarter-masters in the location of gravel and sand for structural use and in both general and special examinations of underground water supply and of drainage possibilities at cantonment sites, and in supplying the Navy Department with similar technical data. A special contribution has been the application to aërial surveys of photogrammetric methods developed in the Alaskan topographic work and the perfection of a camera specially adapted to airplane use. The utilization of the Survey’s map engraving and printing plant for confidential and urgent work for both the Army and Navy has necessitated postponement of current work for the Geological Survey itself. Throughout the organization the records, the methods, and the personnel which represent the product of many years of scientific activity are all being utilized; thus is the experience of the past translated into special service in the present crisis.

_Notes._

Footnote 96:

Hess, R. H., Foundations of National Prosperity, p. 100.

Footnote 97:

Report Nat’l Museum, 1904, pp. 189–733.

Footnote 98:

Featherstonhaugh, J. D., Am. Geol., 3, 220, 1889.

Footnote 99:

Whitney, Mineral Wealth of the United States, pp. 248–250.

Footnote 100:

Foster and Whitney, 31st Cong., 1st session, House Doc. 69, pp. 13–14, 1850.

Footnote 101:

First Annual Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, p. 4.

Footnote 102:

Wheeler, Report 3d Internat’l Geog. Cong., p. 492, 1885.

Footnote 103:

The views of the writer on “natural monopolies” in the Government service are set forth in an address delivered at the centennial celebration of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, April 5, 1916. (See Science, vol. 43, pp. 659–665, May 12, 1916.)

Footnote 104:

For correspondence on this subject, see Minnesota Geol. Survey, Eighth Ann. Rept., 1880, p. 173.

Footnote 105:

Owen, D. D., 30th Cong., 1st sess., Senate Doc. No. 57, p. 7, 1848.

Footnote 106:

This essential difference between present-day requirements and the needs of earlier generations has been discussed by W. C. Mendenhall, the geologist in charge of the Land Classification Board of the Geological Survey: Proceedings 2d Pan-American Sci. Cong., 1915–16, 3, 761.

VI ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

By RICHARD SWANN LULL

_Introduction._

Unlike its sister science of Invertebrate Paleontology, which has been approached so largely from the viewpoint of stratigraphic geology, that of the vertebrates is essentially a biologic science, having its inception in the masterly work of Cuvier, who is also to be regarded as the founder of comparative anatomy. For long decades, vertebrate paleontology was simply a branch of comparative anatomy or morphology in that it dealt almost exclusively with the form and other peculiarities of fossil bones and teeth, often in a more or less fragmentary condition, very little or no attention being paid to any other system of the creature’s anatomy. Distribution both in space and in time was recorded, but the value of vertebrates in stratigraphy was still to be appreciated and has hardly yet come into its own. It is readily seen, therefore, that the two departments of paleontology did not enlist the same workers or even the same type of investigators, for while the two sciences have much in common and should have more, the vertebratist must, above all else, be a morphologist, with a keen appreciation of form, and a mind capable of retaining endless structural details and of visualizing as a whole what may be known only in part. The initial work of the brilliant Cuvier set so high a standard of preparedness and mental equipment that as a consequence, the number of those engaged in vertebrate research has never been large as compared with the workers in some other branches of science, but the results achieved by the few who have consecrated their research to the fossil vertebrates has been in the main of a high order.

At first, as has been emphasized, this work was largely morphological, dealing both with the individual skeletal elements and later with the bony framework as a whole. Then came the endeavor to clothe the bones with sinews and with flesh—to imagine, in other words, the life-appearance of the ages-departed form—with such of its habits as could be deduced from structure of body, tooth, and limb. Next came the working out of systematic series of vertebrates and their marshalling into species, genera, and larger groups, and much time was thus spent, especially when rapid discovery brought a continual stream of new forms before the systematist, and hence some appreciation of the countless hosts of bygone creatures which peopled the world in the geologic past. This systematic work, however, was based upon the most painstaking morphologic comparisons and so the science was still within the scope of comparative anatomy.

In connection with taxonomic research came increasingly tangible evidence in favor of the law of evolution; investigators turned to the working out of phyletic series showing the actual record of the successive evolutionary changes that the various races had undergone. Coupled with this evolutionary evidence came an increased attention to the sequential occurrence in successive geologic strata, and the stratigraphic distribution of vertebrates became known with greater and greater detail. Then followed the assemblage of faunas, which brought the study of the fossil forms within the realm of historical geology, rather than being the mere phylogeny of a single race, and the value of vertebrate fossils as horizon markers became more and more appreciated by the stratigrapher. They serve to supplement the knowledge gained from the invertebrates, and in this connection are especially valuable in that they often give data concerning continental formations about which invertebrate paleontology is largely silent.

_Rise of Vertebrate Paleontology in Europe._

To those who had been nurtured in the belief in a relatively recent creation covering in its entirety a period of but six days, and occurring but four millenniums before the time of Christ, the appearance of the remains of creatures in the rocks, the like of which no man ever saw alive, must have given scope to the wildest imaginings concerning their origin and significance; for many believed that not only had no new forms been added to the world’s fauna since the creation, except possibly by hybridizing, but that none had become extinct save a very few through the agency of human interference. The supposition was, therefore, that such creatures as were thus discovered were still extant in some more remote fastnesses of the world. Thus, our second president, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote one of the first papers on American fossil vertebrates, published in 1798, discussed therein the remains of a huge ground-sloth which has since borne the name _Megalonyx jeffersoni_. Jefferson, however, described the great claws as pertaining to a huge leonine animal which he firmly believed was yet living among the mountains of Virginia.

Cuvier (1769–1832) has been spoken of as the founder of our science. His opportunity lay in the profusion of bones buried in the gypsum deposits of Montmartre within the environs of the city of Paris. Cuvier’s studies of these remains, done in the light of his very broad anatomical knowledge, enabled him to prepare the first reconstructions of fossil vertebrates ever attempted and to bring before the eyes of his contemporaries a world peopled with forms which were utterly extinct. That these creatures were no longer living, none was a better judge than Cuvier, for his prominence was such that material was sent him from all parts of the world, to which must be added that which he saw in his visits to the various museums of Europe. He felt it safe, therefore, to affirm the unlikelihood of any further discovery of unknown forms among the great mammals of the present fauna of our globe, and few indeed have been the additions since his day. To Cuvier is due not alone the masterly contribution to the sister sciences of comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology—the Ossements Fossiles (1812)—but he also announced the presence in continental strata of a series of faunas which showed a gradual organic improvement from the earliest such assemblage to the most modern, an idea of the most fundamental importance and one with which he is rarely credited. He believed in the sudden and complete extinction of faunas, and the facts then known were in accord with this idea, as no common genera nor transitional forms connected the creatures of the Paris gypsum with the mastodons, elephants, and hippopotami which the later strata disclosed. It is not remarkable, therefore, that Cuvier advanced his theory of catastrophism to account for these extinctions. He should not, however, according to Depéret, be credited with the idea of successive re-creations, such as that held by D’Orbigny and others, but of repopulation by immigration from some area which the catastrophe, be it flood or other destructive agency, failed to reach.

Cuvier was followed in Europe by a number of illustrious men, none of whom, however, with the exception of Sir Richard Owen, possessed his breadth of knowledge of comparative anatomy upon which to base their researches among the prehistoric. The more notable of them may be enumerated before going on to a discussion of the American contributions to the science.

They were, first, Louis Agassiz, a pupil of Cuvier and later a resident of America, whose researches on the fossil fishes of Europe are a monumental work, the result of ten years of investigation in all of the larger museums of that continent, and which appeared in 1833–43, while he was yet a young man. The fishes were practically the only fossil vertebrates to come within the scope of his investigations, for his later time was consumed in the study of glaciers and of recent marine zoology. Another student of these most primitive vertebrates who left an enduring monument was Johannes Mϋller. Huxley, Traquair, and Jaekel also did masterly work upon this group, while Smith Woodward of the British Museum is considered the highest living authority upon fossil fishes.

Of the Amphibia, the most famous foreign students were Brongniart, Jaeger, Burmeister, Von Meyer, and Owen, although Owen’s claim to eminence lies rather in the investigations of fossil reptiles which he began in 1839 and continued over a period of fifty years of remarkable achievement. Not only did he describe the dinosaurs of Great Britain in a series of splendidly illustrated monographs, but extended his researches to the curious reptilian forms from the Karroo formation of South Africa. It was to him, moreover, that the establishment of the true position of the famous _Archœopteryx_ as the earliest known bird and not a reptile is due. Von Meyer also enriched the literature of fossil reptiles, discussing exhaustively those occurring in Germany, while Huxley’s classic work on the crocodiles as well as on dinosaurs, and the labors of Buckland, Fraas, Koken, Von Huene, Gaudry, Hulke, Seeley, and Lydekker have added immensely to our knowledge of the group.

Of the birds, which at best are rare as fossils, our knowledge, especially of the huge flightless moas, is due largely again to Owen, and his realization of the systematic position of _Archœopteryx_ has already been mentioned.