2O2 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



location for such an institution is that 

 which admits of the successful cultiva- 

 tion of the widest possible range of pro- 

 ducts, and the commission intrusted with 

 the duty of selecting the site believe they 

 have found it at Chico. 



This commission was composed of 

 Prof. P. H. Dorsett, government ex- 

 pert, who will have charge of the insti- 

 tution, and Prof. A. V. Stubenrauch, of 

 the University of California. They spent 

 months in making a careful study of con- 

 ditions affecting plant life in various por- 

 tions of the state, visiting and carefully 

 inspecting each locality likely to prove 

 available. The decision in favor of Chico 

 was reached sometime ago, but the site 

 selected could not be secured and another 

 tract had to be chosen, which has now 

 been done and the purchase consum- 

 mated. 



Chico is situated near the eastern 

 border of the great Sacramento Valley, 

 75 miles north of Sacramento, the state 

 capital, and was the most northerly 

 point considered by the commission. 

 Climatic conditions in California are 

 affected but little, if at all, by conditions 

 of latitude, the orange, the lemon, and 

 the olive being staple products of a dis- 

 trict that measures fully 500 miles north 

 and south. 



California The stream-gaging work 

 Hydrography, of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, in cooperation 

 with the State of California, is under 

 the charge of Mr. S. G. Bennett, engi- 

 neer, whose headquarters are in the 

 Rialto Building, San Francisco. Be- 

 tween forty and fifty river stations are 

 being maintained and daily records of 

 flow kept. These extend from the 

 Oregon line to Mexico, and cover all the 

 principal streams of the state. In addi- 

 tion, an extended series of low- water 

 measurements of the mountain tribu- 

 taries or streams is made annually. 



During the past year a publication en- 

 titled ' ' California Hydrography ' has 

 been issued by the Geological Survey. 

 This contains 500 pages of closely tabu- 

 lated records of stream flow observed in 

 the State of California, and contains 

 not only the records of the Geological 



Survey, but all of the data that is avail- 

 able from any other source bearing on 

 this subject. It also contains records of 

 the evaporation, floods, discharge, etc. 

 The rainfall in the higher mountains of 

 California is given particular considera- 

 tion, and records of rainfall stations at 

 elevations above i ,000 feet are presented , 

 together with a map showing the esti- 

 mated position of the rain curves of the 

 state. 



Public Service. Apropos of a bill that 

 was before Congress this 

 winter asking for an appropriation of one 

 million dollars to be used in the erection 

 of a building for the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey, some ill-informed news- 

 paper correspondent has been lamenting 

 the extravagance of Director Walcott in 

 appointing Mr. George F. Kunz to be 

 " Radium Commissioner " at the Louis- 

 iana Purchase Exposition. His lamen- 

 tations have so reverberated through the 

 country press that it seems only fair to 

 Director Walcott, Mr. Kunz, and the 

 public to explain that Mr. Kunz is giv- 

 ing his services as a radium expert to 

 the Survey and the nation without any 

 expectation of reward except that which 

 may come to him with the conscious- 

 ness of good citizenship. It behooves 

 the critics to inquire first whether they 

 may not be maligning their own bene- 

 factors before they begin to rail at offi- 

 cials for appointing " commissioners to 

 exploit solium, the X-ray, liquid air, 

 bottled sunshine, paleontology, and bal- 

 loonacy." 



Even a million-dollar building is not 

 the extravagance it may seem to be. 

 The twenty-fourth annual report of the 

 Director of the Survey shows that the 

 Survey was obliged to expend the con- 

 siderable sum of $28,400 for office rent 

 during the fiscal year from July i, 1902, 

 to July r, 1903. One does not need to 

 be an expert bank accountant to calcu- 

 late that under the operation of the 

 principles of compound interest the 

 government might to-day be the richer 

 by the value of its building had it erected 

 a million dollar structure for the use of 

 the Survey when that bureau was first 

 established, a quarter of a century ago. 



