Less closely woven into the operating management of the industry than 'the "company geologist" but nevertheless highly important in mining development are the officials of the geological surveys of national, state, and provincial governments.

It is unlikely that economic geology would yet have attained full status as a science had it not been for the wealth of observation collected by government organizations and correlated by great leaders who have devoted all or part of their professional careers to government work. The study and comparison of mining districts on a scale that is possible only to a group with the authority and resources of a public organization have made it possible to evolve broad and sound theories of ore genesis. By carrying out mapping and scientific study over wide regions for a generation, the surveys have been able to solve large-scale structural and stratigraphic problems that could not have been answered by local investigation.

The pioneer work of the surveys blazes the trail for prospectors and singles out the districts that are most promising for investigation and development. The value of their work is illustrated by the achievements of the Ontario Department of Mines; rarely does a prospector go into the bush without one of the Ontario Survey's reconnaissance maps of the region to show him the areas of barren granite or of potentially productive greenstones and sediments. When prospecting activity touches a particular district, the Survey usually has men in the field immediately and issues a preliminary map before the end of the season. The pros¬pectors and exploration companies make use of it at once as a guide in staking claims and laying out drilling programs.

Although government surveys have been criticized on the one hand for usurping the functions of private consultants and on the other for remaining aloof from practical problems, the geological surveys need not, and usually do not, merit censure on either of these charges. That the surveys' contributions to the search for metals is not entirely indirect and academic is demonstrated by the discovery of ore both in old dis¬tricts and in virgin territory by government geologists on more than one occasion. During the second World War, when government agencies engaged directly in the search for strategic minerals, many government geologists found themselves undertaking the sort of detailed mapping and preparation of recommendations that would normally be the job of the company geologist. By and large they acquitted them¬selves well. Nevertheless, it is true that in normal times the efforts of public surveys to solve the ore-hunting problems of individual mines have not, in general, been spectacularly successful, partly because the time that can properly be devoted to the detailed study of a single mine is necessarily limited, and partly because of the experience and interests of survey men. Many of them enter government service directly from graduate school, and while a number subsequently shift from govern¬ment to industry, relatively few transfer in the opposite direction to bring the operating outlook and the training in underground mapping which "company" geologists acquire. The situation is by no means regrettable, for the survey geologists develop instead a skill in recon-naissance mapping and a predominating interest in scientific problems that fit them admirably for their own special field of activity. That field, although it necessarily overlaps the activities of company geolo¬gists, does not compete with them. The government surveys have a function of extraordinarily useful service to industry that no single company is in a position to perform. The government surveys furnish the framework into which the company geologists can fit their more localized studies; the government geologists can and do develop the broader principles which the ore-hunters can particularize and apply.