BE it simple or compound, small or large, a crystal or a mountain chain, every inorganic aggregate on the Earth, thus, at some time or other, undergoes a reversal of those changes undergone during its evolution.Not that it usually passes back completely from the perceptible into the imperceptible ; as organic aggregates do in great part, if not wholly. But still its disintegration and dispersion carry it some distance on the way towards the imperceptible, and there are reasons for thinking that its arrival there is but delayed." First principle, Herbert Spencer, pages 526-527.A mighty array of isolated facts and inductions from observations made by hundreds of students of Nature below its outer vesture await the review of that philosopher who shall marshall them into an orderly army. That synthesis completed much of the lore of the miner will no longer present an appearance like Falstaff's regiment, a motely gathering of figures and phrases lacking an explanation of their import or relation, and without the uniform garb of scientific language that is so necessary to preserve the lines between one series of ideas and another series-those in front and in rear of the learner. I trust that - this newborn Institute of ours will be an important factor in preparing many of us for deeper, wider, and more soundly scientific conceptions of the subjects that are part of our daily work.