620 



CONSERVATION 



Thus the Geological Survey is heartily 

 cooperating with the General Land 

 Office to the end that the best disposi- 

 tion of the land may be secured, and 

 it should be noted that no small part 

 of the data utilized in this work repre- 

 sents the fruitage of the earlier general 

 investigations of the Survey. In this 

 present-day task of land-classification 

 the painstaking work of the Survey 

 geologists and engineers in the last 

 thirty years counts for much. 



Utilization is the keynote of the pres- 

 ent public-land policy, and by utilization 

 I mean not that kind of local develop- 

 ment that exploits the present at the ex- 

 pense of the future, and is promoted by 

 the land-skinner, but rather a develop- 

 ment whose plan weighs national needs 

 and calculates future demands, and 

 whose accomplishment will serve our 

 country's advance in the next century 

 as well as in the present decade. Util- 

 ization is opposed to both non-use and 

 waste. To withhold the land from pri- 

 vate use, except where public use is of 

 greater advantage to the people, is to 

 check national progress; to dispose of 

 the people's land for other than its 

 highest practical use is to waste that 

 property and betray the trust. The 

 public-land problem thus resolves itself 

 into, first, the determination of the best 

 use to which the public domain can be 

 put, and second, the disposition or res- 

 ervation of the land now belonging to 

 the Nation so as to assure that use. 

 Such a land policy needs no defense, 

 for it is based on the safe principle of 

 the greatest good to the greatest 

 number. 



The classification of the public lands 

 as now carried on by the Geological 

 Survey serves two important ends, one 

 administrative, the other legislative, and 

 I believe both were contemplated by 

 Congress at the time of the creation of 

 the Survey. Not only does land classi- 

 fication facilitate the work of fulfilling 

 the requirements of existing law, but 

 the classification of the public domain 

 and the investigation of its resources 

 furnish Congress with the facts on 

 which to base new legislation. 



A notable example of land classifica- 

 tion in aid of proposed legislation is 

 afforded by the acts of March and Oc- 

 tober, 1888, wherein Congress directed 

 that an irrigation survey should be 

 made by the Geological Survey, and 

 further provided that the reservoir sites 

 and irrigable lands designated as a re- 

 sult of that investigation should be re- 

 served from entry, settlement, or sale 

 pending further legislation. The legis- 

 lation of 1888 was itself the logical out- 

 come of Maj. J. W. Powell's 1879 re- 

 port on the arid lands, and his subse- 

 quent work as Director of the Geolog- 

 ical Survey, and the law that eventually 

 resulted from the work thus authorized 

 in 1888 was the Reclamation Act of 

 1902. 



As another instance where thorough 

 knowledge of the public domain, and 

 particularly of the character of a special 

 tract with its strategic relation to the 

 hydrography of the region, enabled the 

 Department of the Interior to aid Con- 

 gress may be cited the act of February 

 20 of this year, reserving for public use 

 eight sections of waste land in southern 

 California. The law provides that this 

 land shall be used for the diversion of 

 flood waters into underground storage, 

 thereby replenishing the supply of un- 

 derground waters in the San Bernar- 

 dino Valley. While apparently of only 

 local scope, the principle established in 

 this legislation is really of great impor- 

 tance as providing a line of action that 

 will be found adaptable elsewhere in 

 securing effective conservation of waste 

 waters. 



Hydrographic and topographic sur- 

 veys which are in progress at the pres- 

 ent time under instructions of the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior have as their 

 purpose the collection of information 

 that may be presented to Congress in 

 aid of legislation looking toward the 

 best utilization of the water-powers on 

 the public domain. 



Land classification in aid of the ad- 

 ministration of the public lands is now 

 actively prosecuted by the Geological 

 Survey, and reports setting forth in de- 

 tail the mineral or non-mineral charac- 

 ter of public lands are being transmitted 



