e, 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 there are exceptions to this statement,--there are men
with a highly developed business sense who are successful in spite of
inadequate scientific training, but such success should be regarded as a
business and not a professional success.

Geology is sometimes described as the application of other sciences to
the earth. This statement might be made even broader, and geology
described as the application of all knowledge to the earth. In the
writer's experience, the best results on the whole have been obtained
from students who, before entering geology, have had a broad general
education or have followed intensively some other line of study. Whether
this study has been the ancient languages, law, engineering, economics,
or other sciences, the results have usually been good if the early
training has been sound. To start in geology without some such
background, and without the resulting power of a well-trained mind, is
to start with a handicap in the long race to the highes