Illustrative of the type of investigation undertaken by the Survey in this direction are the continuing investigations of the problems of flood prevention and of reclamation of marsh. and swamp lands, and the special investigation of the hydraulic mining débris problem. The investigation last mentioned, one of the most extensive and original of those made in this field by the Survey, was undertaken at the request of the California Miners' Association with a view to devising measures whereby the interests of agriculture and navigation. in the streams carrying mining débris could be harmonized with those of the placer mining industry. The investigation. by the Survey, which extended over more than ten years, involved research in the existing literature on the subject, laboratory study of the laws of transportation of detritus by running water, and a field examination of the entire course of the Sierra Nevada River. The report of this investigation, which was published in 1917, recommends a coöperative control by all the major users of the Sierra's water whether for mining, irrigation, or power development.

Examination Under Act of March 1, 1911, of Land Proposed to be Purchased by the Government for Protection of Navigable Streams. The act approved March 1, 1911, known as the Weeks Act, which provides for the acquisition. of land for the purpose of conserving the navigability of navigable streams, imposed a new duty on the Geological Survey, The lands to be purchased must be selected by the National Forest Reservation Commission, but under section 6 of the act they may be purchased only after the Geological Survey has examined them and submitted a report on them to the Secretary of Agriculture "showing that the control of such lands will promote or protect the navigation of streams. on whose watersheds they lie." The law thus places upon the Geological Survey the responsibility of determining the fundamental question whether the control of any specific tract of land will promote or protect navigability, and stipulates that

a favorable report to the Secretary of Agriculture must precede the purchase of the tract considered.

Following is a description of the methods employed in beginning this work as contained in the annual report of the Director of the Survey for 1911:

On the initiative of the Survey a conference was arranged between representatives of the Department of Agriculture and of the Department of the Interior, and an agreement was reached concerning procedure in the administration of this new law, so far as the Forest Service and the Geological Survey are concerned, to the end that the examinations of land by the two bureaus might be coördinated. In this agreement, which was approved by the two Secretaries on May 3, 1911, it is set forth that the examination by the Geological Survey will include the determination of the relation of the headwater streams to the navigable streams to which they are tributary, the local observation of the headwater stream or streams draining the tract or tracts in question with reference to runoff characteristics and to nature and amount of suspended material, the classification of the surface formations of the tract with reference to permeability and storage capacity and to resistance to erosion, and the securing of such additional topographic data, in coöperation with the Forest Service, as are needed by the two bureaus in their examination of the tract.

The greater part of the examinations necessitated by this act were completed within the first two years after the passage of the act, but other examinations have since been made from time to time.

Investigation of the Character and Value of Public Lands Made Necessary by the Public Land Laws. As has been seen in the preceding sections, the surveys and investigations made by the Survey, though they extend over the whole country, have in large measure related to what may be termed the public land region of the United States. Indirectly, therefore, the Survey's general work has had and continues to have a far-reaching influence upon the development of the public

lands. In addition, however, the Survey aids materially in the actual administration of the public land laws, for it is called upon to investigate the mineral and water resources of specific areas of the public land, as well as to determine the value of certain tracts, and to recommend to the Secretary of the Interior or the General Land Office the designation or non-designation of each tract in such areas as falling under one or another of the statutes governing the public lands. Moreover, on occasion, it is charged with the drafting, for the approval of the Secretary of the Interior or the President, of further regulations for the administration of these laws.

Origin and Development. For a decade or more before the creation of the Survey, Congress, by legislation for the disposition of the public lands, had in increasing degree drawn distinctions between the several types of land. The homestead law of 1862 had expressly excluded mineral lands from its provisions. Every grant to a railroad, beginning in 1862 and ending in 1871, excluded from the grant all lands containing minerals other than coal and iron. In the decade 18651875 were enacted the basic provisions governing the disposition of mineral lands. In 1873 was enacted the coal land law, which provided not merely for the sale of coal lands under special provisions, but, inferentially at least, for their evaluation before sale. In 1877 still another novel distinction was introduced into the land laws by the enactment of a provision for the sale of desert lands.

Despite the existence of these special provisions relative to the disposition of desert, timber, mineral and coal and iron lands, neither the statutes nor the machinery of the Land Office made any provision for the independent determination by the government, in advance of sale, of the character of the lands to be sold. The sole method employed was that of proof offered by the entryman or claimant and subject to challenge before the officers of the Land Office. The results

8

8 "At present the General Land Office possesses the machinery for the survey, classification, and sale of the public lands. In that bureau the field-notes and maps of the various deputy surveyors are intended

secured by this method were thus characterized by Major Powell, subsequently Director of the Geological Survey, in 1878, the year before the Survey was created: "No adequate provision is made for securing an accurate classification, and to a large extent the laws are inoperative or practically void; for example, coal lands should be sold at $10 or $20 per acre, but, the department having no means of determining what lands belong to this class, titles to coal lands are usually obtained under the provisions of statutes that relate to lands of other classes—that is, by purchasing at $1.25 per acre, or by homestead or preëmption entry."

Major Powell was accordingly of the opinion that “an examination of the laws will exhibit this fact-that for the classification contemplated therein a thorough survey is necessary, embracing the geological and physical characteristics of the entire public domain." The National Academy of Sciences, to which Major Powell had expressed this opinion, and which, as already stated in the outline of the origin of the Survey, had been requested by Congress to investigate the entire subject of government surveys, reported that "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 Land Office shall also call upon the United States Geological Survey for all information as to the value and classification of lands."

In the act creating the Geological Survey, as already stated, Congress provided that it should have charge of the "classifi

to convey sufficiently accurate information for the general guidance of the officers who execute the sales. The law also provides a method of proof as to the character of lands, which forms an indispensable stage in the process of sale. Any transaction as to a piece of public land may be challenged before the proper officers, and its character may be determined by competent proof. The present method of sale of the public lands depends, therefore, chiefly upon a rule of law rather than the classification of experts in advance of the procedure of sale." First Annual Report of the Geological Survey, 1880, p. 5.

cation of the public lands." In the same act, however, provision was made for the creation of a commission of five members, of whom the Director of the Geological Survey was to be one, to report to Congress "first, a codification of the present laws relating to the survey and disposition of the public domain; second, a system and standard of classification of public lands, as arable, irrigable, timber, pasturage, swamp, coal, mineral lands, and such other classes as may be deemed proper, having due regard to humidity of climate, supply of water for irrigation, and other physical characteristics; third, a system of land-parceling surveys adapted to the economic uses of the several classes of lands; and, fourth, such recommendations as they may deem wise in relation to the best methods of disposing of the public lands of the western portion of the United States to actual settlers." The commission appears to have given consideration to the practicability of a classification of the public domain in advance of disposition, and to have decided adversely to any change in the existing practice in this regard.

Accordingly, the Director of the Survey stated in his first annual report:

Upon examination of the existing land system, I have assumed that Congress, in directing me to make a classification of the public lands, could not have intended to supersede the machinery of the Land Office, and substitute a classification to be executed by another bureau of government, without having distinctly provided for the necessary changes within the Land Office, and adjustment of relations between the two bureaus.

I have therefore concluded that the intention of Congress was to begin a rigid scientific classification of the lands of the national domain, not for purposes of aiding the machinery of the General Land Office, by furnishing a basis of sale, but for the general information of the people of the country, and to produce a series of land maps which should show all those features upon which intelligent agriculturists, miners, engineers, and timbermen might hereafter base their operations, and which would obviously be of the highest value for all stu