Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/226

Prof. C. D. Walcott, Director, United States Geological Survey. countries and hold office, the congress at St. Petersburg may be the last. Formerly the officers of geological surveys of nations fought the establishment of the congress. The congresses once established, the bureaucrats changed front, got hold of the machinery through their representatives, and now mostly control it. At St. Petersburg the unofficial geologists of the world will try to wrest the direction from the members of geological surveys. At Zürich, for instance, there were present thirteen of the most distinguished Prof. J. J. Stevenson, University of New York, President New York Academy of Sciences. Two salaried assistants of the United States Geological Survey were declared by the Swiss council alone eligible and representative, and were made vice-president and delegate from the United States, At present too many members of government bureaus comprise the official roster of the congress, although the congress itself is composed of several hundred of the most distinguished geologists of the world, who, if not members of a geological survey, are ignored by those now in control. This is a situation which does not commend itself to scientific men, many of whom occupy chairs in great universities or eminent positions as specialists. These men think the abuse has become a flagrant one.