It is evident that we have not a new light of poetry in Mr. Voldo.[Q] He tells us that this is a first attempt, and it may well be the last, for he seems to have been led--and misled--into the practice of poetic expression by a certain gift, in his case fatal, of rhythm. The flow of his lines is far superior to the meaning or the expression. In fact the latter is so involved and farfetched, that the former is often entirely obscured. To find out what it is he tries to tell us would really be a painful process, and the few attempts we have made were too immediately fatiguing to produce any results. Two of his poems are worth reading, one because its versification is well managed, and the other because its story is simple and naturally told. It is a relief after so many pages of overstraining at words, and it shows that Mr. Voldo can be really pleasant, if he will only be simple. Well, two out of fifty is above the average! * * * * * It is only two years since a prominent American geologist wrote to a foreign scientific paper that he had been on the point of sending to Germany for two or three men to assist him in an important State survey.[R] His reason for this determination was that our country did not possess men competent to find and follow up intelligently the different strata; except those who were already engaged on other surveys. Luckily this discreditable act was prevented by the sudden abandonment of one of these other surveys, which released assistants enough to satisfy this extremely difficult gentleman. The truth is that, by some means, geological science has been pushed in this country with great vigor and with grand results. Within the last ten years there has been a revival of energy in that particular science which recalls the golden days of Hugh Miller, Murchison, Agassiz, and Lyell. The time when the very exacting gentleman, above alluded to, could not find helpers on this side of the Atlantic, was the middle point around which were grouped the surveys of Newberry and Andrews in Ohio, Clarence King in Nevada, Whitney in California, Wheeler and Powell south of the Pacific Railroad, and Hayden north of that line. Michigan was just finishing a partial, but extremely productive, survey of her mineral regions. Missouri had plunged hopefully into another. Pennsylvania was planning the comprehensive work in which Leslie and his aids are now engaged. Indiana, New Jersey, and other States had taken the great steps so much desired by the initiated all over the world, and had made the geologist a standing member of their government. All this had been done without the _necessary_ importation of a foreigner. One or two foreigners had obtained employment on these surveys, but only because they came here and sought the work. Nearly every one of the young men who performed the work of assistants was an American. It is safe to say that in this