206 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



vine, E. E. Howell, E. D. Cope, Jules Marcou, and I. C. 

 Russell were connected with the field parties. Captain 

 Wheeler >s own claim for the work of his Survey empha- 

 sized its geographic side, for he regarded the results as 

 the partial completion of a systematic topographic sur- 

 vey of the country. 



By 1878, when the Fortieth Parallel Survey had com- 

 pleted the work planned by its chief, three of these inde- 

 pendent surveys still contended for Federal support and 

 for scientific occupation of the most attractive portions 

 of the Western country. Unrestrained competition of 

 this kind, even in the public service, proves as wasteful as 

 unregulated competition in private business, 8 and Con- 

 gress appealed to the National Academy of Sciences for a 

 plan for Government surveys to ' l secure the best results 

 at the least possible cost." Under instructions by Con- 

 gress the National Academy considered all the work 

 relating to scientific surveys^ and reported to Congress 

 a plan prepared by a special* committee, whose member- 

 ship included the illustrious names of Marsh, Dana, 

 Rogers, Newberry, Trowbridge, Newcomb, and Agassiz. 

 This report, which was adopted by the Academy with 

 only one dissenting vote, grouped all surveys geodetic, 

 topographic, land parceling, and economic under two 

 distinct heads, surveys of mensuration and 'surveys of 

 geology. At that time five independent organizations in 

 three different departments were carrying on surveys of 

 mensuration, and the Academy recommended that all 

 such work be combined under the Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey with the new name Coast and Interior Survey. 

 For the investigation of the natural resources of the pub- 

 lic domain and the classification of the public lands a 

 new organization was proposed, the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey. The functions of these two surveys and 

 of a third coordinate bureau in the Interior Department, 

 the Land Office, were carefully defined and their inter- 

 relations fully recognized and provided for in the plan 

 presented to Congress. Viewed in the light of 39 years 

 of experience the National Academy plan would be 

 indorsed by most of us as eminently practical, and the 

 report stands as a splendid example of public service ren- 

 dered by America's leading scientists. The legislation 



