274. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
agricultural industries.” He also advanced the view that the 
land-parcelling survey should be part of the same organization. 
He stated that the transcontinental triangulation of the Coast 
Survey and the barometric observations of the Signal Service 
could and should be made the basis of further work, but did 
not indicate how this was to be done. 
On November 6, the committee submitted a unanimous report 
to the Academy. The report was considered at a special meeting 
held in New York and after three hours’ discussion was adopted 
with but a single dissenting vote.” The President of the Acad- 
emy thereupon acquainted the principal executive officers of the 
Government with the recommendations contained in the report, 
which were favorably received by the President, the General of 
the Army, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of the 
Treasury and the Superintendent of the Coast Survey. The 
Chief of Engineers of the Army opposed the plan. On the open- 
ing of Congress in December the report was transmitted to 
both houses and by them ordered printed. 
The committee in this report confined its attention to six 
scientific surveys of the public domain which were then in 
operation. ‘These were the surveys west of the 1ooth meridian, 
under the War Department; the U. S. Geological and Geograph- 
ical Survey of the Territories and the U.S. Geographical 
and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, under 
the Department of the Interior; the U. S. Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, under the Treasury Department; and the Land Office 
Surveys, under the Interior Department. It pointed out that 
the work of these organizations could be summed up under two 
headings, “1. Surveys of mensuration, 2. Surveys of geology 
and economic resources of the soil,” and its recommendation was 
that they be recombined to form three distinct organizations. 
These were to be as follows: “ (1) The Coast and Interior Sur- 
vey, whose function will embrace all questions of position and 
mensuration; (2) the United States Geological Survey, whose 
function will be the determination of all questions relating to 
*6 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, p. 152. 
