GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



405 



and other private surveys, and critically corn- 

 Besides the scientific corps outlined above, 

 the organization includes a number of acces- 

 sory divisions, which are grouped at the central 

 office. The technical library, comprising 15,- 

 000 volumes and 11,000 pamphlets, is in charge 

 of a librarian, with a corps of assistants. There 

 is a division of disbursements and accounts, 

 which has charge of all purchases and other 

 expenditures of money. The work of publica- 

 tion gives rise to two divisions, one of which 

 is devoted to the preparation of illustrations, 

 while the other assists the authors of reports 

 in the work of editing. There is a division of 

 photography, with multifarious functions. It 

 aids the topographer by enlarging and reduc- 

 ing maps to be united in compilation ; it aids 

 the field-geologist by performing the indoor 

 work complementary to his outdoor photog- 

 raphy a method of illustration now rapidly 

 growing in importance ; it aids the paleontolo- 

 gist in the delineation of plants and other fos- 

 sils ; and in numerous ways it economizes the 

 time of the draughtsman and engraver. 



The principal office of the Survey is in the 

 city of Washington, and the greater part of the 

 indoor work is performed there ; but branch 

 offices are maintained in Denver and San Fran- 

 cisco by the economic divisions of the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Pacific. The collections are 

 deposited in the National Museum, and in the 

 same building are located the laboratories of 

 chemistry, physics, paleobotany, and inverte- 

 brate paleontology. The laboratory of verte- 

 brate paleontology, with its bulky collections, 

 can not at present be afforded the necessary 

 space in Washington, and by the courtesy of 

 Yale College is temporarily accommodated in 

 New Haven. 



Appropriations. So elaborate a system of co- 

 operative work could not be well organized in 

 a brief period, and therefore Congress made 

 provision at first for a relatively small force 

 only. The money appropriated for the fiscal 

 year ending June 30, 1880, was $106,000; for 

 the fiscal year 1881, $156,000 ; for 1882, $156,- 

 000; for 1883, $258,440; for 1884, $341,140; 

 for 1885, $489,040; for 1886, $503,240. A 

 part of each year's appropriation is devoted to 

 the payment of certain permanent salaries es- 

 tablished by law ; the remainder is employed 

 in the payment of temporary employes, in de- 

 fraying traveling expenses, and in the purchase 

 of material necessary to the work in offices and 

 laboratories. Independent provision is made 

 for engraving and printing, which are paid for 

 from the general appropriation for the work of 

 the public printer. It is estimated that the 

 amount thus expended during the current fis- 

 cal year will exceed $200,000. 



Publications. The Survey publishes annual 

 reports, monographs, bulletins, statistical pa- 

 pers, and maps. The annual reports contain, 

 first, the administrative reports of the director 

 and his principal assistants; and, second, sci- 



entific papers, exhibiting those results of the 

 work which have the greatest general interest. 

 The monographs are in quarto, and embody in 

 extenso the final results of the more important 

 researches. The bulletins are in octavo, and 

 are intended to give prompt publication to 

 comparatively brief essays on special subjects. 

 The statistical papers are devoted to the mineral 

 resources of the country. Some of the mono- 

 graphs are illustrated by atlases, containing local 

 and special maps ; but there is also to be issued 

 a series of maps prepared on a uniform plan, so 

 that, when complete, it will form an atlas of 

 the entire country. The unit of this series is 

 an area measuring one degree in latitude by 

 one degree in longitude, and the scale adopted 

 for the unit map or atlas-sheet is 1 : 250,000, 

 or, approximately, four miles to the inch. This 

 gives to the engraving a length, north and 

 south, of seventeen inches, and a width, east 

 and west, of about fourteen inches. For re- 

 gions where, by reason of dense population or 

 geologic complexity, this scale is inadequate, 

 use is made of one twice as great, or 1 : 125,- 

 000 ; and, in such case, four sheets instead of 

 one are employed to represent the unit area. 

 For certain regions a still larger scale has been 

 adopted, namely, 1 : 62,500, with sixteen sheets 

 to the square degree. The engraving is upon 

 copper, and each sheet is printed in three col- 

 ors. The drainage, including streams, ponds, 

 lakes, etc., is printed in blue. The contours, 

 or grade-curves representing lines of equal al- 

 titude, are printed in brown. The lettering, 

 the towns, the railroads, the wagon-roads or, 

 in general, the "culture" are printed in 

 black. The vertical interspace between con- 

 tiguous contours varies with the scale and with 

 the character of the country to be represented, 

 the range being from 20 feet to 200 feet. 



It is provided by law that the publications 

 of the Survey shall be either sold at cost, or 

 else exchanged for other books and maps; 

 and the publications received in exchange are 

 added to the library of the Survey. Three 

 thousand copies of each publication are placed 

 in the hands of the director for such disposal, 

 and 1,900 copies are issued to the officers of 

 the legislative and executive departments of 

 the Government, and to certain libraries, etc., 

 throughout the United States. Special pro- 

 vision has also been made for the gratuitous 

 distribution of large editions of specified annual 

 reports. Up to the present time there have 

 been issued four annual reports, seven mono- 

 graphs, twenty-six bulletins, and two statis- 

 tical papers, the fifth and sixth annual reports 

 are in press, as are also four monographs and 

 four bulletins. Forty-six atlas-sheets are in 

 the hands of the engraver, and twenty others 

 are complete in manuscript. This literary out- 

 put, which makes a total of less than 11,000 

 pages, can not be regarded as large, if we take 

 account of the size of the corps and its liberal 

 endowment, and if we make comparison with 

 the work of the organizations that preceded 



