ber, the extent to which the forests are pastured, the amount. of timber already cut and the effects of deforesting, the relations of timber supply and transportation, the local demands of miners and settlers, and the supply needed for more distant markets. Upon the basis of the information thus gathered, regulations for the use of the forest reserves were framed and the boundaries of the reserves were readjusted.

The examinations of the forest reserves were carried steadily forward for seven or eight years and covered about 75,000,000 acres. In addition to reports on the several reserves, the Survey undertook, in connection with these examinations, the preparation of land classification maps of the areas examined. These maps were prepared on the regular atlas sheets of the Survey as bases, and showed not only the forests with burnt and cut lands but the irrigable and pasture lands. In all some forty sheets of this type were prepared and published.

During the years 1897 to 1905 the data collected by the Survey relative to the forest reserves furnished the basis of the regulations governing those reserves and of the administration of those regulations. The actual administration of the reserves was, however, vested in the General Land Office. In 1905 the administration was transferred to the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture, which was renamed the Forest Service. To this Service was also transferred all further examination and classification of the forests; and the work of the Survey relating to forests was henceforth limited to "topographic surveys on public lands which have been or may hereafter be designated as national forests,' an activity for which specific appropriations, varying in amount from $100,000 to $75,000, have since annually been made.

Stream Gaging and Reclamation Work. After the repeal, in 1890, of those parts of the act of 1888 that provided for the segregation of sites for canals and ditches and of lands made available for irrigation, the appropriations made to the Sur

vey during 1888 and 1889 for surveys in the arid lands had also been discontinued. In 1894 the Survey, however, obtained a specific appropriation of $12,500 "for gauging the streams and determining the water supply of the United States, including the investigations of underground currents and artesian wells in arid and semiarid sections." This small appropriation was doubled for the fiscal year 1896 and that amount again doubled for the fiscal year 1897, so that for the three years 1897 to 1899 it stood at $50,000, rising to $70,000 in 1900 and $100,000 in 1901, the terms of the appropriation being broadened, however, in 1896 to read: "

for

gauging streams and determining the water supply of the United States, the investigation of underground currents and artesian wells and the preparation of reports upon the best methods of utilizing the water resources." As a result of the operations conducted under these appropriations, which, though they extended over the whole country, were naturally concentrated in the arid regions, the Survey accumulated a most extensive body of information regarding the water resources of the arid regions, particularly with reference to their availability for irrigation. It was but natural, therefore, that upon the passage, in 1902, of the reclamation act, the administration of the act should be entrusted by the Secretary of the Interior to the Survey.

The Reclamation Service was first organized merely as a division of the so-called Hydrographic Branch, the chief of that branch acting also as chief engineer of the Reclamation Service. As the work of that service passed, however, from the stage of planning to that of actual construction, its association with the Hydrographic Branch and then with the Survey itself became more and more nominal until, in 1907, pursuant to a recommendation made by the Director of the Survey, it became an independent service, subject to control only by the Secretary of the Interior, its chief engineer, the former chief of the Hydrographic Branch of the Survey, becoming its director. Since that time the relation between the Survey

and the Reclamation Service has been merely that of coöperation in respect to certain matters of stream measurement.

Work in Mining Technology. From the first the Survey had established a close relation to the mining and mineral industries of the country through the preparation of its annual report on "Mineral Resources of the United States." This relation was steadily strengthened by investigations made by the Survey in important mining areas, by investigations and publications relative to technologic processes, and by the publication, beginning in 1894, of parts of a geologic map of the country, of which the early issues covered, almost without exception, areas of interest to the mining industry. In 1898 the growth of this relation of the Survey to the mining industry was reflected in the introduction into Congress of a resolution 13 calling for the creation, by statute, in the Survey, of a separate division of mines and mining, with a specific appropriation, on the ground that the mining interests of the country should have "a clearly defined representation in the organization of the Government." Its passage was recommended by the Survey, but without success.

Some six years later Congress authorized the Survey to undertake a kind of work which had been mentioned by the Director, in his report recommending the establishment of a division of mines and mining,14 as one which might well be taken up by such a division-a systematic inquiry into the values of the several deposits of economic minerals in the country. By act of February 18, 1904, there was appropriated the sum of $30,000 "for analyzing and testing the coals and lignites of the United States." In 1905 this appropriation was enlarged to $227,000 and was extended to cover all fuels; and simultaneously there was added an appropriation for investigating structural materials. In the next few years the appropriations for both these purposes were largely increased.

In connection with both investigations, as they proceeded, 18 Senate Res. No. 205, 55th Congress, 3d Session.

14 Annual Report for 1898-1899, p. 21.