208 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



liamentarily sound in that the language was new to the 

 Sundry Civil bill, yet actually the Senate had only two 

 days before stricken the same proposed legislation from 

 the pending Legislative Appropriation bill. However, 

 the House conferees Representatives Atkins of Tennes- 

 see, Hewett of New York, and Hale of Maine had real- 

 ized their tactical advantage, and the Senate, after a 

 brief debate, voted on March 3 to concur in the report of 

 the committee of conference, thus reversing all their 

 earlier action, in which the friends of the Hayden and 

 Wheeler organizations apparently had commanded more 

 votes than the advocates of the National Academy plan. 



Clarence King was appointed first Director of the 

 United States Geological Survey on April 3, 1879, and 

 began the work of organization. With his proven genius 

 for administration, King promptly resolved the doubt as 

 to the meaning of the term "national domain " in the 

 language defining the duties of the Director by taking the 

 conservative side and limiting the work of the new organ- 

 ization to the region west of the 102d meridian. This 

 region was divided into four geological divisions, and for 

 economy of time and money field headquarters were 

 established for these divisions. The Division of the 

 Rocky Mountains was placed under Mr. Emmons as 

 geologist in charge, the Division of the Colorado under 

 Captain Dutton, the Division of the Great Basin under 

 Mr. Gilbert, and the Division of the Pacific under Arnold 

 Hague. The Division of the Colorado was intended as 

 merely temporary for the purpose of bringing to comple- 

 tion the scientific work of the Powell Survey. Similarly 

 Dr. Hayden was given the opportunity to prepare a sys- 

 tematic digest of his scientific results. This organ- 

 ization of the work and the selection of geolo- 

 gists in charge showed the relation of the new and the 

 old, and a glance at the personnel of the new Survey 

 indicates the extent to which the geologic investigation 

 of the Western country was to continue without interrup- 

 tion. Of the twenty-four geologists and topographers 

 listed in the first administrative report, four had been 

 connected with the Powell Survey, two with the Hayden, 

 three with the Wheeler, and five with the King Survey. 



In planning the initial work of the United States 



