the minority of the commission, and these provisions became permanent features of the appropriation acts of the Survey.

The Powell Irrigation Survey, 1888-1890. The Director of the Survey, Major Powell, had for some years been deeply interested in the question of reclamation of the arid public lands by irrigation. In 1878 he had rendered to the Commissioner of the General Land Office a "report on the land of the arid region of the United States with a more detailed account of the land of Utah." In discussing the methods to be employed for the reclamation of the arid lands, he had stated that it involved engineering problems requiring for their solution the greatest skill, as well as the employment of large capital and possibly government aid, if not direct government construction. By 1888 the continued appropriation and reduction to private ownership of the readily available streams in the arid region, which he had foreseen, resulted in the authorization by Congress of investigation by the Geological Survey of "that portion of the arid regions of the United States where agriculture is carried on by means of irrigation, as to the natural advantages for the storage of water for irrigation purposes, with the practicability of constructing reservoirs, together with the capacity of the streams and the cost of construction and capacity of reservoirs, and such other facts as bear on the question of storage of water for irrigating purposes." By an appropriation act passed a few months subsequently and by one passed in 1889, a total of $350,000 was appropriated for the conduct of this investigation.

The act of October 2, 1888 (25 Stat. L., 526), however, in addition to making appropriation for the investigation, directed the Survey to designate all lands which might be used "for sites for reservoirs, ditches, or canals for irrigation purposes, and all the lands made susceptible of irrigation by such reservoirs, ditches, or canals;" and it was provided that all such lands “are from this time henceforth hereby reserved from sale as the property of the United States, and shall not be subject after the passage of this act to entry, settlement or

occupation until further provided by law." Thus, for the first time, the Survey was vested with powers of direct administration with respect to the public domain.

Immediately upon the enactment of this legislation, the Survey organized a large force, composed principally of topographic engineers, and undertook a vigorous prosecution of the project entrusted to it. Within a little more than a year after its organization this branch of the Survey, which is commonly referred to as the Powell Irrigation Survey, segregated 127 reservoir sites, having an area of over 2,500 square miles, and, in addition, over 30,000,000 acres of irrigable land located in five distinct basins.10

The sweeping action of the Survey provoked a wide-spread protest from persons in the arid region who were adversely affected and as a result a special committee of the Senate was appointed to investigate the entire subject. The report of the majority of the committee, rendered in 1890, severely criticized the policy adopted by the Survey.11 By the act of August 30, 1890 (26 Stat. L., 391), the whole of the act of 1888 was accordingly repealed except as to reservoir sites, the segregation and reservation of which was expressly continued. The appropriations made in 1888 and 1889 for the survey of the arid lands were also discontinued.

Though it may be said that the operations of the Powell Irrigation Survey thus met with congressional disapproval, the actual results achieved by it in topographic maps of the arid regions and in stream measurements constituted a work of enduring value and furnished the basis upon which the subsequent work of the Survey in connection with reclamation was largely based.

Whether because of the disfavor with which its operations

10 The reports on the operations of the Powell Irrigation Survey were published in separate volumes of the annual report of the Director of the Survey for the fiscal years 1889 to 1892, inclusive. The figures are taken from the volume for 1889, page viii.

11 The report of the committee together with the record of the hearings held by it was printed as Senate Report No. 928, 51st Congress, Ist Session.

in the arid lands had been viewed by Congress or because of the general tendency to reduce appropriations as a result of the economic depression in the country, the appropriations to the Survey suffered a heavy reduction in the period from 1890 to 1896. Up to and including the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890, the Survey's appropriations had increased with every year, the increase being in one year as high as $150,000, so that for the fiscal year 1890 the total amount appropriated was over $875,000. For the fiscal year 1891 the appropriation was reduced to less than $850,000, but the reduction was due entirely to the elimination of the irrigation survey, the appropriations for topographic and geologic surveys receiving a marked increase. In the following year the appropriation for topographic surveys was somewhat reduced, so that the total appropriations were but little more than $700,000. During the next three years, however, the reductions were exceedingly heavy, the amount for topographic surveys being reduced successively from $250,000 to $240,000, $200,000 and $150,000; but the appropriation for geologic surveys, at first reduced from $115,000 to $50,000, was subsequently increased to $70,000 and $100,000. Proportionately, the heaviest reductions were made in the relatively small appropriations for paleontological researches and chemical and physical researches, the former being reduced from $40,000 in 1892 to $10,000 for the three following years, and the latter from $17,000 in 1892 to $5,000 in 1893 and 1894, and $7,000 in 1895. In 1895, accordingly, the total appropriation for the Survey was but slightly over $500,000; less than had been appropriated for the year 1886. With the fiscal year 1896 a period of substantial increase again set in which has continued without material interruption until the present time.12

The figures presented show that in the early nineties the topographic work of the Survey had become perhaps its major activity as determined by percentage of cost. The grow

12 All the appropriations for the Survey are shown in detail in tabular form in Appendix 5.

ing importance of this work was further emphasized by the third director of the Survey, Charles D. Walcott, who succeeded Major Powell in 1894. Mr. Walcott, in his first annual report, announced his intention of enhancing the value of the topographic survey for other than geologic purposes and ordered the representation upon the topographic maps of land subdivision lines and township and section corners in the public land states, and he obtained authority from Congress to print and sell the topographic maps with text for educational purposes.

The desirability of having detailed topographic maps of an area in advance of its geologic or other special investigation resulted, very early in the Survey's history, in the extension of topographic work over large areas that had not been covered by geologic investigations. So extensive and accurate was the topographic work thus performed that it rapidly assumed an importance of its own quite independent of its prospective utilization in connection with the Survey's geologic or other work. In 1888 this condition was recognized by Congress by a specific appropriation for the first time for topographic work, and in the next year by the transfer to the Geological Survey of the work of engraving the topographic and geologic maps -work that had formerly been entrusted to private engravers, under contract with the Government Printing Office.

In 1896, by a special act of Congress, a new function was temporarily imposed upon the Survey, that of conducting a land subdivision survey. The work was done in the Indian Territory during the years 1896 to 1898. The Director of the Survey reported that this work had demonstrated "that it is more economical to survey large areas in this manner than under the contract system heretofore employed by the Government in its land subdivision surveys. This statement applies to large areas embracing one thousand square miles or more." With respect to smaller areas the Director was of the opinion that the system of employing local surveyors under contract was the more economical. No subsequent land sub

division surveys have been required of the Survey by Congress. In 1898 there was, however, an appropriation made for the survey by the Geological Survey of the northern portion of the Idaho-Montana boundary, and from time to time other boundary surveys have been made by the Survey.

The history of the Survey's geologic and topographic work in the next decade is one of steady progress along established lines, and a rapid development of that part of its work which had direct economic application. The extension of its operations to Alaska, beginning in 1895, has already been mentioned. During these years, in addition to thus entering a field where rapid economic development was imminent, the Survey attacked in succession three major problems of the conservation of the natural resources of the country-the conservation of the national forest lands, the reclamation of the arid public lands, and the elimination of waste, both of raw material and of life, in the mining industries of the country.

Survey of Forest Reserves. From its beginning, in connection with its regular geologic and topographic surveys, the Survey had gathered data relative to the country's forests; and in 1891, on the enactment of a law authorizing the President to set aside forest reserves on the public lands, the Survey had been able to give advice to the Secretary of the Interior as to the determination of the boundaries of such reserves. The lack of definite information as to the conditions and resources of the lands included in the forest reserves had made impracticable, however, any attempt to administer them. In 1897, therefore, Congress appropriated $150,000 "for the survey of the public lands that have been or may hereafter be designated as forest reserves by Executive proclamation," specifying at the same time that these surveys should be made under the supervision of the Director of the Survey (30 Stat. L., 34). Under this authority the Survey began a thorough survey of the national forests-their distribution, the size and density of the timber, the distribution of the leading economic species, the damage inflicted by fires, the amount of dead tim