Washington did not do this as fully as he wished, but his ambition has been and is being realized through the medium of hundreds of enterprises under both national and private encouragement. The result of a trip made in the fall of 1784 was the real historic beginning of the Potomac enterprise. On his return he wrote to Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, “I shall take the liberty now, my dear sir, to suggest a matter which would mark your administration as an important era in the annals of this country if it should be recommended by you and adopted by the Assembly.” He reached far out for those days, assuming Detroit as a point of departure for the trade of the northwest territory. His confidence in the practical abilities of the American people is shown by the remark, “A people who are possessed with the spirit of commerce, who see and will pursue their destinies, may achieve almost anything. No person who knows the temper, genius and policy of this people as well as I do can harbor the smallest doubt.” In urging the Potomac scheme, he later asked that commissioners be appointed to make a careful survey of the Potomac and James rivers to their respective sources, and that a complete map of the country intervening between the seaboard, the Ohio waters and the Great Lakes be presented to the people. “These things being done,” he says, “I shall be mistaken if prejudice does not yield to facts, jealousy to candor and finally, if reason and nature, thus aided, do not dictate what is right and proper to be done.” He introduced his plan to the notice of Congress, thus making the first suggestion to that body of the policy of national improvements which the present generation is carrying on, as well as of the policy of exploration and national surveys to which our Government so firmly adheres. To-day the Government is carrying forward surveying work by means of the largest and most thoroughly equipped organizations in existence, and thus is Washington honored. The scientific men of to-day owe to Washington profound respect and gratitude for the scientific spirit he cultivated in his work. The Government once established on so high a plane, it necessarily followed that all true science should be encouraged and be enlisted in the development of the citizen and of the material resources of the nation. CHARLES D. WALCOTT, _U. S. Geological Survey_, _Washington, D. C._ _SCIENCE AND FICTION._