NATURE 



197 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 18S0 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED. 

 ST A TES 



IT will be in the recollection of geological readers that 

 the chronic feuds to which so many independent 

 United States Government Surveys with rival objects and 

 officers gave rise, were last year referred by Congress to 

 the National Academy of Sciences, and that, acting on the 

 Report submitted by the Academy, Congress determined 

 to abolish all the separate geological and geographical 

 surveys then in existence under different Departments, 

 and to consolidate the work under one establishment, to 

 be termed the United States Geological Survey. In 

 order, however, that the work already in progress might 

 not be wholly lost or indefinitely postponed it was enacted 

 that for the preparation and completion of the reports, 

 maps, and other work of the Geological and Geographical 

 Survey of the Territories, of the Geographical and Geo- 

 logical Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, and of the 

 Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian under 

 the direction of the Secretary of War, the sum of twenty 

 thousand dollars, to be immediately available, should be 

 given to each of these three offices. It is to be hoped 

 that these provisions will suffice for the publication of 

 several valuable memoirs which are known to have been 

 in progress for some years. 



One of the recommendations made by the Academy of 

 Sciences was that a separate organisation should be pro- 

 vided for the surveys of mensuration, including the purely 

 geographical and topographical work such as had been 

 carried on by the Coast and Geodetic Surveys and the 

 Land Office. For this fundamentally important and in- 

 dispensable branch of the scientific examination of the 

 country no special provision was, however, made by 

 Congress ; which is all the more to be regretted seeing 

 that by the terms of the Act, so far as we can make out 

 the Engineer bureau was to be relieved of the important 

 geodetic work it had so long and so ably been conducting 

 west of the 100th meridian. There are ways indeed of 

 driving a carriage and four through an Act of Congress, 

 and the Engineers have shown themselves so able to 

 hold their own under many successive administrations, 

 that we wait with some interest to learn how far exactly 

 their operations will be curtailed or modified. 



The Act which constituted the new organisation of the 

 Geological Survey likewise made provision for a Com- 

 mission on the codification of the laws relating to the 

 Survey and disposition of the Public Domain. Of this 

 Commission the Director of the United States Geological 

 Survey was ex officio appointed a member. The Com- 

 mission began its work last summer in the Western 

 Territories, and made rapid progress. Besides Mr. 

 Clarence King, it included among its members Major 

 Powell and Capt. Dutton, who have so long been known 

 for their geological labours among the great plateaux and 

 Canons of the West. Doubtless the objects of the 

 Commission were of paramount importance, and these 

 three geologists, from their long and intimate knowledge 

 of the Territories, were probably better fitted than any 

 other citizens for carrying out rapidly and exhaustively 

 Yol. xxi. — No. 531 



the special inquiries entrusted to them. Otherwise some 

 natural regret might be expressed that the services of 

 such men should have been removed for practically a year 

 from the geological work for which they have proved 

 themselves so eminently qualified. 



It is an excellent custom in the United States to define 

 the time within which a Commission appointed by Con- 

 gress is to send in its Report. This inquiry into the Land 

 Laws and the classification of public lands was required 

 to be completed within a year from the organisation of the 

 Commission. We hear that the work is now finished so 

 far as collecting evidence goes, and that the Report on 

 the whole subject may shortly be expected. How long 

 would a Royal Commission of similar nature and scope 

 have lasted here ? 



The cessation of the labours of the Commission will 

 free the geologists for the work of the Geological Survey. 

 Much interest is felt as to the distribution of their staff and 

 the areas over which it will be extended. Certainly no 

 corps of geologists ever had a more magnificent oppor- 

 tunity of adding to the temple of science. They have 

 large funds at their disposal, boundless territory, ground 

 of surpassing geological interest, and the enormous 

 advantage of a previous experience of many years spent 

 in the West. Their doings are watched with particular 

 care and even with some anxiety in the eastern States, 

 owing to a curious episode after the passing of the Act 

 establishing the Geological Survey. Subsequent to the 

 appointment of the Director of the new organisation, an 

 extra Session of Congress was held, in which a resolution 

 was passed in the House of Representatives to the effect 

 " that the Director may extend his examinations into the 

 States." As this resolution was adopted on June 29 and 

 the Session closed next day, there was not time to bring 

 it before the Senate. 



It will be seen that the addition of these words 

 enormously widens the area of the Director's jurisdiction. 

 As Prof. Dana complains, this area is " suddenly enl irged 

 to the dimensions of the whole country from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific," and he adds that this was the view of the 

 director himself, who had personally informed him " that 

 it was his purpose under the Act, to send a party into 

 New England next spring." We can hardly 

 that any such vast extension of the original scope of the 

 Geological Survey was present to the minds of the repre- 

 sentatives who passed the resolution. The additional 

 words were probably meant only to authorise the work of 

 the Survey to be prolonged into States adjoining the 

 Territories, to such an extent as the necessities or advan- 

 tages of the sen-ice might require. And this was a very 

 proper addition. Geological boundary lines have seldom 

 any close relation to political ones, even when physical 

 features are used as lines of demarcation. But in 

 America, where the limits of States and Territories are 

 defined by meridians and parallels, it would be absurd 

 to arrest a geologist's work in the middle of a prairie, or 

 a canon, or a mountain-range, because he had 

 the limiting but invisible boundary of his territory. The 

 idea of sending a party into New England looks like .1 joke, 

 and as such we shall believe it to have been intended 

 until authentic news of the arrival of the Survey party 

 actually reaches this country. That it is not so re 

 in the United States, however, is manifest by the ilutter 



