The original appropriation for this survey was only $5,000, but this was increased by successive annual appropriations of $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, $75,000, $115,000, $110,000, $95,000, $65,000, $75,000 and $75,000, as well as by a specific appropriation of $30,000 to complete maps and office work; so that the total cost of the survey amounted to $735,000 exclusive of the cost of printing and engraving and of the ser vices of several officers detailed from the Army.

3. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Moun tain Region. In 1867 the Smithsonian Institution began an exploration of the Colorado River. This survey was later recognized by Congress in a joint resolution, approved July 11, 1868 (15 Stat. L., 253), authorizing the Secretary of War "to issue rations for twenty-five men of the expedition engaged in the exploration of the river Colorado under direction of Professor Powell, while engaged in that work." Additional appropriations, $54,000 in all, were granted in 1870-73, the expedition still remaining under the control of the Smithsonian Institution. On the completion of the survey of the Colorado River, Powell was, by act of June 23, 1874 (18 Stat. L., 207), authorized to continue the survey in Utah under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior; and subsequent acts of appropriation authorized the extension of the field of survey to the "Rocky Mountain region." In all, the area surveyed was 67,000 square miles, embracing southern Wyoming, central and southern Utah and adjacent portions of Nevada and Arizona. This survey was primarily exploratory and geographical but, in addition to the triangulation of the whole region and the establishment of the geodetic points, it included work in topography, ethnology, geology, botany, paleontology and kindred sciences.

The results of the survey were not published in full, the only printed documents produced being two brief reports in 1877 and 1878 by Powell.

Though the appropriations for the survey amounted only

to $244,000, the total cost, not including engraving and printing, as stated by Powell in a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, was $279,000.

W 4. Geographical Survey West of the One Hundredth Meridian. An act approved June 10, 1872 (17 Stat. L., 367) authorized a "continuance of military and geographical surveys and explorations west of the one hundredth meridian of longitude." The survey was made under the jurisdiction of the War Department, Lieutenant George M. Wheeler, of the Engineer Corps, being placed in charge. This survey, as its name implies, covered all the territory west of the one hundredth meridian, which includes the western parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Pacific Coast states. This survey was primarily geographical or topographical, but, as was stated in the report of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War on May 10, 1878 (House Executive Document No. 88, 45th Congress, 2d Session), was so made as to obtain "at the same time and as far as practicable without greatly increasing the cost, all the information necessary before the settlement of the country, concerning the branches of mineralogy and mining, geology, paleontology, zoology, botany, archæology, ethnology, philology, and ruins."

The survey was brought to a close in 1879 and its results were published in 1875-1889 under varying titles.2

The original appropriation for this survey was $75,000, but a series of additional appropriations for continuing the survey, for engraving and printing, and for completing the office work of the survey brought the total direct appropriations for the survey up to the sum of $618,644. If to this sum is added the value of the aid and supplies received from the War Department and the salaries of regular Army officers detailed

2 The titles of these reports and of the papers they contain are given in Bulletin 222 of the U. S. Geological Survey.

to the survey, the cost of the survey appears to have been $805,340.3

Establishment of the U. S. Geological Survey, 1879. It will thus be seen that in the early seventies four surveys were simultaneously in progress under specific appropriations made by Congress, two under the Interior Department and two under the War Department, each having a method of its own and in several places two covering the same area.

xIn addition, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, after having executed a triangulation and detailed survey of part of the coast of the United States, had, under authority granted by Congress in the act of March 3, 1871, extended its work into the interior in order to provide, by means of primary triangulation carried across the continent, geodetic connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

The feeling became very strong, both in Congress and outside, that this condition of affairs was unsatisfactory, for there was evidently not only loss of efficiency and unnecessary expense by having five separate organizations working in the same general field, but duplication and overlap of work.1

As a result, in 1878, Congress in making further appropriations for the existing surveys (act of June 20, 1878, 20 Stat. L., 230) provided that:

The National Academy of Sciences is hereby required, at their next meeting, to take into consideration the methods and expenses of conducting all surveys of a scientific character under the War or Interior Department, and the surveys of the Land Office, and to report to Congress as soon thereafter as may be practicable a plan for surveying and mapping the Territories of the United States on such general system as will, in their judgment, secure the best results at the least possible cost; and also to recommend to Congress a suitable plan for

8 A full discussion of the indirect cost of this survey may be found in the report of the commission to consider the organization of the Signal Service, Geological Survey, etc., 1886. (Senate Report No. 1285, 49th Congress, 1st Session.)

* See H. R. Report No. 612, 43d Congress, Ist Session.

the publication and distribution of the reports, maps, and documents, and other results of said surveys.

The National Academy submitted its report to the House of Representatives on December 3, 1878 (House Executive Document No. 5, 45th Congress, 3d Session). In this report the academy, after briefly discussing the systems of survey then existing, recommended that the Coast and Geodetic Survey be transferred from the Treasury to the Interior Department and there take over all surveys of mensuration, including those being performed by the four surveys heretofore enumerated, as well as the work performed by the surveyors of the General Land Office. The report proceeds to state that:

The best interests of the public domain require, for the purposes of intelligent administration, a thorough knowledge of its geological structure, natural resources, and products. The domain embraces a vast mineral wealth in its soils, metals, salines, stones, clays, etc. To meet the requirements of existing laws in the disposition of the agricultural, mineral, pastoral, timber, desert, and swamp lands, a thorough investigation and classification of the acreage of the public domain is imperatively demanded. The committee, therefore, recommend that Congress establish, under the Department of the Interior, an independent organization, to be known as the United States Geological Survey, to be charged with the study of the geological structure and economical resources of the public domain, such survey to be placed under a Director, who shall be appointed by the President, and who shall report directly to the Secretary of the Interior.

The recommendations of this report were incorporated in the legislative, executive and judicial appropriation bill, and in this form favorably acted upon by the House, but in the Senate, owing to the congestion of business at the close of the session, and for other reasons not connected with the merits of the matter, these provisions failed of passage. In the resulting conference committee the provisions intended to con

solidate all surveys of mensuration in a single service to be organized around the Coast and Geodetic Survey were dropped, but the following was agreed on for insertion in the sundry civil appropriation bill:

For the salary of the Director of the Geological Survey, which office is hereby established, under the Interior Department, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, $6,000; provided, that this officer shall have the direction of the Geological Survey,5 and the classification of the public lands and examination of the Geological Structure,5 mineral resources, and products of the national domain, and that the Director and members of the Geological Survey shall have no personal or private interests in the lands or mineral wealth of the region under survey, and shall execute no surveys or examinations for private parties or corporations; and the geological and geographical survey of the Territories, and the geographical and geological survey of the Rocky Mountain region, under the Department of the Interior, and the geographical surveys west of the one hundredth meridian, under the War Department, are hereby discontinued, to take effect on the 30th day of June, 1879. And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archæology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum.

For the expenses of the Geological Survey and the classification of the public lands and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources and products of the national domain, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, $100,000.

The publications of the Geological Survey shall consist of the annual report of operations, geological and economic maps illustrating the resources and classification of the lands, and reports upon general and economic geology and paleontology. The annual report of operations of the Geological Survey shall accompany the annual report of the Secretary of the Interior. All special memoirs and reports of said Survey shall be issued

The capitalization of these words, which appears in the Statutes (Vol. 20, p. 394), is doubtless a typographical error.