APPENDIX V 
Earlier Views on Federal Reorganization 
of the Environmental Sciences 
In 1884 the National Academy of Sciences recommended to the 
Congress that it consider the formation of a Department of Science. 
A Joint Commission of the Senate and House of Representatives held 
hearings to “consider the present organizations of the Signal Service, 
Geological Survey, Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic 
Office of the Navy Department, with the view to secure greater 
efficiency and economy of administration.” John W. Powell, Director 
of the Geological Survey, presented extensive testimony at these hear- 
ings? and expressed views remarkably similar to those derived 
independently by the Panel 82 years later. 
Powell thoroughly documented the interactions and interdepend- 
ences of the agencies which were concerned with the environmental 
sciences at that time. ‘“* * * I have endeavored to fully set forth the 
relations which exist between the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the 
Geological Survey, and I think that I have shown that these relations 
are many, far-reaching, and fundamental. I have also shown, in a 
less perfect manner, that the relations existing between the Geological 
Survey and the National Museum and Fish Commission are in like 
manner many, far-reaching, and fundamental” (p. 173) ; “thus it is 
that the Geological Survey is profoundly interested in the general 
problems of meteorology and in the operations of the Signal Service, 
and that the Signal Service is profoundly interested in the operations 
of the Geological Survey” (p. 175) ; “the Signal Service and the Geo- 
logical Survey should work for each other and with each other” 
(p. 175). 
On the basis of these interactions and interdependencies, Powell 
recommended the formation of a single agency incorporating the 
Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Smithsonian 
7On the Organization of Scientific Work of the General Government, Govern- 
ment Printing Office, Washington, 1885. 
134 
