GEOLOGY 69 



FRENCH 



There is a headquarters at the Ministry of Colonies in Paris 

 under the organization of the Inspecteur-general des Travaux Pub- 

 hques. Monsieur Hubert is the scientific and technical advisor. 

 A similar central headquarters for the French African colonies 

 exists in Madagascar. In addition, information is centralized in 

 the Bureau (T Etudes Geologiques et Mini ere s pour les Colonies Frangaises 

 in Paris, under the direction of Monsieur Blondel, who at the same 

 time is collating information from all sources for an international 

 geological map of Africa (see p. 71). This bureau has published 

 a series of volumes on the geology and mineral resources of the 

 French colonies, including full bibliographies. That for 1932 con- 

 tains a number of articles by specialists on individual colonies, 

 surveying the geology and the mining activity at that time. Volumes 

 published in 1933-5 have special reference to all the known mineral 

 deposits of importance; and the series was supplemented in 1934 

 with a volume on general aspects of the mining industries. 



In each of the three major political divisions, French West 

 Africa, Equatorial Africa and the Gameroons, there is a geological 

 and a mining department as sections of the large public works 

 organization. The system adopted in French West Africa, where 

 the department is the most fully organized, will serve to indicate 

 the scheme of work. The headquarters are at Dakar, where there 

 are offices and laboratories for chemistry, petrology, and palaeon- 

 tology. A staff'of eleven geologists, of whom two or three specialize 

 in palaeontology and the rest in petrology, is maintained. Eight of 

 these spend seven months each year during the dry season working 

 in the field, and return to Dakar to work up their results in the wet 

 season. The total area as far north as the 17th parallel, which 

 coincides roughly with the southern border of the Sahara Desert, 

 is to be covered by 171 map sheets on the scale of 1 1200,000, each 

 showing an area of 1 1,000 square kilometres. Each field geologist 

 can work out one such sheet during the year, so it is hoped that the 

 whole survey will be complete in twenty-two years. Each geolo- 

 gist traverses his area in diagonals, eight kilometres apart. The 

 total cost is about 100,000 francs per sheet. 



In addition to this big programme of geological mapping, sur- 

 veys of underground water have been made for parts of Mauritania 



