862 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Mr. C. E. HooKEK. I think the amendment offered by the gentle- 

 man from Illinois [Mr. Stevenson] ought to receive the favorable con- 

 sideration of this committee. If the argument made against it by the 

 gentleman from (xeorgia [Mr. Blount] is made on good and sufficient 

 grounds, then ho and his committee should not have reported any thing 

 for this purpose. If, as he asserts, there has Ijeen a malapplication of 

 the money heretofore appropriated for surveys during the last ten 

 years, then clearly the Committee on Appropriations have committed 

 a great error. If his position is at all correct that this great and 

 important work should be abandoned 



Mr. Blount. The gentleman certainl}^ misapprehends me. 



Mr. HooKEE. I understood the gentleman to say that the money 

 appropriated for the last ten years for surveys had been misapplied to . 

 this purpose, and that there was no necessity for it at all. I say to 

 the gentleman if his premises are correct his conclusions are erroneous. 



Mr. Blount. I have no doubt the gentleman is right about that. 



Mr. Hooker. I send to the Clerk's desk to be read a letter on this 



subject from the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. [See 



Estimates, April IT, 1880.] 



* * * * * * * 



Mr. Blount. I move that the House again resolve itself into Com- 

 mittee of the Whole to resume the consideration of the sundry civil 

 appropriation bill. 



Agreed to. 



The House accordingly resolved itself into Committee of the Whole 

 (Mr. J, T. Harris, of Virginia, in the chair), and resumed the consid- 

 eration of the sundry civil bill for 1881. 



Mr. Blount. I have before me the sundr}'- civil appropriation act 

 of 1879, which contains an appropriation in this language: 



For the completion of the reports of the Geographical and Geological Survey of 

 the Rocky ]Mountain Region, with the necessary maps and illustrations, $20,000; to 

 be immediately available. 



This is the sort of appropriation under which this work has been 

 going on. When an effort was made to abolish these surveys, the 

 Committee on Appropriations recommended and Congress passed in 

 the sundry civil appropriation act of 1879 the following provision: 



For completing and preparing for publication the Contributions to North American 

 Ethnology, under the Smithsonian Institution, $20,000: Provided, That all the 

 archives, records, and materials relating to the Indians of North America, collected 

 by the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, shall be 

 turned over to the Smithsonian Institution, that the work may be completed and 

 prepared for publication under its direction: Provided, That it shall meet the 

 approval of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



This, in the past, has been the language of the appropriations for 

 the surveys of which Major Powell has had charge. Yet these ethno- 



