OCEANOGRAPHY 91 



Now the Geological Survey, as its name implies, has to do with this 

 but you also have a second branch that does cadastral surveying or 

 topographical surveying? 



Mr. Cloud. This is the Topographic Division. 



Mr. Miller. How much of the area of the United States has now 

 been mapped '. 



Mr. Cloitd. Topogi'aphically ? I could only really guess at the an- 

 swer to that question. 



Actually, a very large part of the United States is covered by 

 topographic maps of one sort or another but the quality of these 

 maps over very large areas is simply inadequate for modern research 

 purposes. 



Mr. Miller. You do not know what percentage is mapped? 



Mr. Cloltd. I could only guess at that. 



Mr. Miller. Is it 75 percent ? 



Mr. Cloud. I would say 75 or 80 percent of the country was covered 

 by topographic maps of some quality, probably not more than 20 per- 

 cent by means of good, first class quality, but I stress that these are 

 simply wild guesses. 



Mr. Miller. The part where the maps are not entirely accurate at 

 least gives us some idea of the country itself. 



Mr. Cloud. Yes, they do, and the topographic mapping program 

 has been stepped up in recent years with particular emphasis on the 

 coastal areas and the international boundaries. We have very fine 

 maps for most of the coastal areas and the international boundaries 

 with Canada and Mexico. 



Mr. Miller. If I remember rightly, this branch originally was part 

 of the Army, was it not? 



It started out as the topographical part of the Army away back 

 around 1820 or some place in there. 



Mr. Cloud. Xo, the Survey was not organized until 1879. 



Mr. Miller. That is riglit, but tlie work that it did in topographical 

 work of making maps of the country at that time was part of the 

 Army's function tliat j^ou inherited from them in 1878, is that 

 right ? 



Mr. CiX)UD. Well, this is a little more history than I can cope with. 

 1 recognize that both geology and topography were sort of appendages 

 to military operations in the West before the organization of the 

 Geological Surv^ey. 



Mr. MiLi>ER. I have in mind a man who got his education in Eu- 

 rope, a fellow by the name of Fremont that started out west and 

 among other things was instructed to look for routes on which to 

 put a railroad. He was a topographical engineer. 



The point I was making is that since at least 1878 we have been 

 trying to map the United States on land and we have not done a 

 very good job of it and yet there are vast areas of the Pacific which 

 are many times the size of the United States on which we have prac- 

 tically no infonnation. 



Mr. Cloud. I would to some extent defend the history of our map- 

 ping development and I would do it on this basis: that the complexity 

 of your requirement is a function of your times. At the time of these 

 early explorations when people were wandertng around tlirough the 

 West in wagon trains and they would look and say, "That looks like 



