620 CONSERVATION 



Thus the Geological Survey is heartily A notable example of land classifica- 

 cooperating with the General Land tion in aid of proposed legislation is 

 Office to the end that the best disposi- afforded by the acts of March and Oc- 

 tion of the land may be secured, and tober, 1888, wherein Congress directed 

 it should be noted that no small part that an irrigation survey should be 

 of the data utilized in this work repre- made by the Geological Survey, and 

 sents the fruitage of the earlier general further provided that the reservoir sites 

 investigations of the Survey. In this and irrigable lands designated as a re- 

 present-day task of land-classification suit of that investigation should be re- 

 the painstaking work of the Survey served from entry, settlement, or sale 

 geologists and engineers in the last pending further legislation. The legis- 

 thirty years counts for much. lation of 1888 was itself the logical out- 

 Utilization is the keynote of the pres- come of Maj. J. W. Powell's 1879 re- 

 ent public-land policy, and by utilization port on the arid lands,, and his subse- 

 I mean not that kind of local develop- quent work as Director of the Geolog- 

 ment that exploits the present at the ex- ical Survey, and the law that eventually 

 pense of the future, and is promoted by resulted from the work thus authorized 

 the land-skinner, but rather a develop- in 1888 was the Reclamation Act of 

 ment whose plan weighs national needs 1902. 



and calculates future demands, and As another instance where thorough 



whose accomplishment will serve our knowledge of the public domain, and 



country's advance in the next century particularly of the character of a special 



as well as in the present decade. Util- tract with its strategic relation to the 



ization is opposed to both non-use and hydrography of the region, enabled the 



waste. To withhold the land from pri- Department of the Interior to aid Con- 



vate use, except where public use is of gress may be cited the act of February 



greater advantage to the people, is to 20 of this year, reserving for public use 



check national progress ; to dispose of eight sections of waste land in southern 



the people's land for other than its California. The law provides that this 



highest practical use is to waste that land shall be used for the diversion of 



property and betray the trust. The flood waters into underground storage, 



public-land problem thus resolves itself thereby replenishing the supply of un- 



into, first, the determination of the best derground waters in the San Bernar- 



use to which the public domain can be dino Valley. While apparently of only 



put, and second, the disposition or res- local scope, the principle established in 



ervation of the land now belonging to this legislation is really of great impor- 



the Nation so as to assure that use. tance as providing a line of action that 



Such a land policy needs no defense, wil1 be found adaptable elsewhere in 



for it is based on the safe principle of securing effective conservation of waste 



the greatest good to the greatest wat ers 



number Hydrographic and topographic sur- 



rr, *, .,- ,. , ,, 11-1 veys which are in progress at the pres- 



The classification of the public lands ^ dme under ins u * tions of the P Sec . 



as now carried on by the Geological retary of the Interior haye as thdr 



Survey serves two important ends, one p urpose the collection of information 



administrative, the other legislative, and that may be presented to Congress in 



I believe both were contemplated by aid of legislation looking toward the 



Congress at the time of the creation of best utilization of the water-powers on 



the Survey. Not only does land classi- the public domain. 



fication facilitate the work of fulfilling Land classification in aid of the ad- 

 the requirements of existing law, but ministration of the public lands is now 

 the classification of the public domain actively prosecuted by the Geological 

 and the investigation of its resources Survey, and reports setting forth in de- 

 furnish Congress with the facts on tail the mineral or non-mineral charac- 

 which to base new legislation. ter of public lands are being transmitted 



