Still another attempt to discriminate between scientific and non-scientific phases of geologic effort has been the assumption by certain scientific organizations with reference to standards of admission,—that work done for practical purposes may be regarded as scientific only if it leads to advancement of the science through the publication of the results. There is by no means any general agreement as to the validity of this distinction. On this basis, some of the most effective scientific work which is translated directly into use for the benefit of civilization is ruled out as science, because it is expressed on a typewritten rather than on a printed page.
While applied phases of the geologist's work may be truly scientific in the broader sense, it is undoubtedly easy in this field to drift into empirical methods, and to emphasize facility and skill at the expense of original scientific thought. The practice of geology then becomes an art rather than a science. This remark is pertinent also to much of non-applied geologic work in recent years. A considerable proportion of this empirical facility is desirable and necessary in the routine collection of data and in their description; but where, as is often the case, the geologist's absorption in such work minimizes the use of his constructive faculties, it does not aid greatly in the advancement of science.
Geology is by no means the only science in which there has been controversy as to the relative merits of the so-called pure and applied phases; but as one of the youngest sciences, which heretofore has been pursued mainly from the standpoint of "pure science," it is now, perhaps more than any other science, in the transition stage to a wider viewpoint. In the past there was doubt about the extension of chemistry toward the fields of physics and engineering, and of physics toward the fields of chemistry and engineering, and of both physics and chemistry toward purely economic applications; but out of these fields have grown the great sciences of physical chemistry, chemical engineering, and others,—and few would be rash enough to attempt to draw a line between the pure and applied science, or between the scientific and non-scientific phases of this work. This general tendency means a broadening of science and not its deterioration.
COURSE OF STUDY SUGGESTED
There are almost as many opinions on desirable training for economic geology as there are geologists, and the writer's view cannot be taken as representing any widely accepted standard. On the basis of his own experience, however, both in teaching and in field practice, he would lay emphasis on the fundamental branches both of geology and of the allied sciences,—general geology, stratigraphy, paleontology, physiography, sedimentation, mineralogy, petrology, structural and metamorphic geology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. After these are covered, as much attention should be given to economic applications as time permits. The time allowance for training, at a maximum, is not sufficient to cover both pure and applied science. Subsequent experience will supply the deficiencies in applied knowledge, but will not make up for lack of study of basic principles.
It is safe advice to a student wishing to prepare for economic geology that there is no royal road to success; that his best chance lies in the effort to make himself a scientist, even though he cover only a narrow field; that if he is successful in this, opportunities for economic applications will almost inevitably follow. To devote attention from the start merely to practical and commercial features, rather than to scientific principles, brings the student at once into competition with mining engineers, business men, accountants, and others, who are often able to handle the purely empirical features of an economic or practical kind better than the geologist. In the long run the economic geologist succeeds because he knows the fundamentals of his science, and not because he has mere facility in the empirical economic phases of his work. Of course