The foregoing criteria find their readiest application in regions where
a later sheet of drift, suspected of belonging to a later ice epoch,
failed to reach the border of an earlier sheet of drift, suspected of
belonging to an earlier ice epoch. The 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th and 10th
as enumerated above, find their application wholly within the area
affected by the drift of the separate epochs, if such there were. While
within this general area they may be looked for at any point, they
are likely to be of rare occurrence, except along a somewhat narrow
belt, say 50 to 100 miles, adjacent to the border of the lesser ice
advance. The conditions for their occurrence and detection are greatly
favored if the lesser drift sheet be the later. The 6th, 7th, 9th and
12th criteria might hope for application within the same belt, but
especially along a narrow zone on either side of the margin of the
later drift sheet. It is along this zone that the types of surface are
thrown into sharpest contrast, both as to material and topography. The
8th and 11th criteria have still wider limits of application, both
within and without the border of the lesser ice advance.
=Rollin D. Salisbury.=
=_Editorials._=
It is the chief function of the national, state and provincial
geological surveys to bring forth the great concrete facts relative
to the structure and resources of their several fields. Within their
special domains they also do an important work in the correlation
of structures and formations, in the systematic aggregation of the
facts, in the organizing of results, and in the development of the
fundamental principles of geological science. To some extent they are
permitted to do this beyond their own fields, but in the main the
boundaries of these fields are the limits of their coördinations. They
therefore leave a great function to be performed by some other agency
in the coördination of interstate, international, and intercontinental
factors. They are also restrained by their relationships to a somewhat
too narrowly utilitarian public from devoting much direct attention
to the solution of the deeper and broader problems that constitute
the soul of science, though their contributions bear upon these in
the most radical and important way. In the primary work of systematic
observation, and the development of the immediate conclusions that
spring therefrom, these surveys surpass all other agencies in the
value of their contributions to the growth of the science, but in
the secondary and ulterior work of correlation, in the synthetic
aggregation and organization of results, and in the analytical and
philosophical treatment of the whole, they need to be supplemented
by agencies whose facilities and limitations lie in other lines,
agencies whose relations and dependencies are complementary in nature.
This secondary and ulterior work, in some degree, has been done by
individual master students of systematic and philosophical geology, but
to a very great extent it has not been done at all. It is a function
which properly falls to universities, if the universities can only rise
to meet it; for it is the function of universities, in the larger
modern view, not only to rehearse science, nor merely even to educate
young geologists, important as that is, but to develop science for
science's own sake, and for its own inherent and permanent utilities
as distinguished from its immediate applicabilities. To fulfill this
function they must not only realize and appreciate it, but they must
be equipped for field and experimental work, as well as library and
laboratory study. Ideal correlations and academic systematizing are as
apt to be hindrances as helps to the progress of science. While a few
of the great universities of this country and Europe have made notable
advances in these directions, the universities are, on the whole, far
behind the great surveys in the performance of the work which properly
falls to them. This is due not so much to a lack of appreciation of the
function as to the lack of facilities.
With the development of this higher function of the universities there
goes a coördinate function for a university journal of geology, a
journal whose special efforts shall be devoted to promoting the growth
of systematic, philosophical, and fundamental geology, and to the
education of professional geologists. No part of the wide domain can
wisely be neglected by any journal, but there seems to be an open field
for a periodical which specially invites the discussion of systematic
and fundamental themes, and of international and intercontinental
relations, and which in particular seeks to promote the study of
geographic and continental evolution, orographic movements, volcanic
coördinations and consanguinities, biological developments and
migrations, climatic changes, and similar questions of wide and
fundamental interest. This field is not likely to be successfully
cultivated except by a systematic endeavor, pursued through a period of
years, to bring together the latest and best summations of the results
attained in the several national fields in a common medium, where they
can be compared and discussed, and where tentative correlations will
suggest themselves, out of which, in turn, working hypotheses will
naturally spring, leading on to such direct investigations as the
nature of each question invites. It would be presumptuous to assume
that the =Journal of Geology= can cultivate with more than very partial
success this field, but it especially invites contributions of this
class.
Another phase of geology which is thought to stand in much need of
active cultivation is found in the clear and sharp analysis of its
processes, the exhaustive classification of its phenomena, especially
on genetic bases, the development of criteria of discrimination, the
more complete evolution and formulation of its principles and the
development of its working methods. The recent opening of new fields
of research and the rapid progress of several new and important
departments of the science give peculiar emphasis to this need. The
rising generation of geologists, the hope of the science, should be
schooled in these latest and most critical aspects of the science. A
department of the =Journal=, entitled "Studies for Students," has been
opened for the special cultivation of this field and for its adaptation
to advanced students and progressive teachers of geology. Mere
elementary presentations of processes and principles are not desired,
but searching and critical expositions are solicited suited to the
needs of young geologists who seek the highest professional equipment,
and to progressive teachers who desire the fullest practicable command
of the newest developments of the subject. These contributions may not
be without their value to those who have already borne a considerable
part of the heat and burden of life's professional day.
It is our desire to open the pages of the =Journal= as broadly as a
due regard for merit will permit, and to free it as much as possible
from local and institutional aspects. It will have the very important
advantage of being published under the auspices and guarantee of the
University of Chicago, and will be free from the usual financial
embarrassments attending the publication of a scientific magazine. This
necessarily imposes upon the local editors the immediate responsibility
for its editorship. Beyond this, it is hoped that its institutional
relationship will disappear entirely in an earnest effort to promote
the widest interests of the science. As an earnest of this wider
effort several eminent geologists, representing some of the leading
universities of this country, and some of the great geological
organizations of Europe, have kindly consented to act as associate
editors.