1270 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
A communication on the subject from the Director of the Geological 
Survey is appended as a part of this report. 
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 
Unitep Statres GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, 
Washington, D. C., February 15, 1889. ‘ 
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th of 
January, 1889, relating to the necessity for a building for the accommodation of the 
Geological Survey, and in reply thereto the following statement is made: 
The building now occupied by the Survey is rented by the Government at the rate 
of $10,000 per annum. It has eighty-four large and commodious rooms, but they are 
all so crowded with cases, desks, apparatus, and with the personnel of the Survey 
that it is with difficulty that the business of the Survey is transacted, and this 
crowded condition entails serious loss, many times greater in amount, expressed in 
dollars and cents, than would be sufficient to rent a building twice as large. There 
are about four hundred persons in the Survey during the winter months, and desks 
for the accommodation of such a number of persons fill the rooms and halls. In 
addition to the rooms in the rented building, through the courtesy of the Secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institution, the Survey is permitted to use twenty-two roomsin | 
the National Museum, and these are all crowded in such manner that work is seri- 
ously obstructed. 
The rooms in the National Museum were temporarily given to the Survey ata 
time when there was no pressing necessity for their use by the officers of the 
Museum; but at the present time the entire Museum is so crowded that the Secretary 
of the Smithsonian and the Director of the Museum are anxious to have these rooms. 
surrendered for their use. It will thus be seen that there is pressing necessity for 
more than twice the amount of room space that is now available for the Survey. 
I beg permission to set forth somewhat in detail what these necessities are: 
. (1) It is necessary to have a chemical laboratory with no fewer than twelve large 
rooms, that the chemical analyses and investigations may be carried on withaccuracy 
and economy. 
(2) It is necessary to have a mineralogic laboratory, where minerals, ores, rocks, 
and soils can be studied, and for this purpose four spacious rooms are needed. 
(3) It is necessary to have a paleontologic laboratory of sixteen spacious rooms for 
the accommodation of a large corps of pe oat with apparatus and appliance 
necessary for their work. 
(4) It is necessary to have a large room or hall for the library, together with two 
smaller rooms for the librarian and clerks having charge of the library. 
(5) It is necessary to have a number of storage rooms for documents, rocks, min- 
erals, ores, and fossils. 
(6) It is necessary to have seven rooms for the disbursing officers and their 
clerks and for the files, records, and documents belonging to that branch of the 
work. 
(7) Three rooms are necessary to manage properly the work of the editorial 
division of the Survey. 
(8) Six rooms are necessary for the accommodation of the director, chief clerk, 
stenographers, and the letter and record clerks. 
_ (9) In addition to the above, 200 rooms are necessary for the proper accommoda- 
tion of the geologists, geographers, topographers, hydrographers, and engineers. 
In the Geological Survey it is very important that the scientific assistants should 
not be unreasonably crowded into rooms with a number of persons in each. * To use 
large rooms with many persons in them is greatly disadvantageous. The work of 
the scientific force is multifarious and diverse, and men engaged in research must be 
to a greater or less extent isolated, that they may quietly work out their results with- 
EE. a 
