550 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 173. 



Klondike, set the imaginations of men on 

 fire. Long caravans of ox teams in end- 

 less succession wended their slow way 

 across the plains, the mountains and the 

 deserts to the sunset land of gold. Gov- 

 ernment surveys for a railroad promptly 

 followed, and crude and imperfect knowl- 

 edge as to the region rapidly gave place to 

 better, though still defective, knowledge of 

 the Great West. 



Then came war and the need of war 

 maps. All available agencies for their pro- 

 duction for the use of aj-my and navy were 

 drawn upon, and the need of topographic 

 maps for military purposes, hitherto clear 

 to the few, was now made clear to the 

 many. 



In the years immediately following the 

 Civil War several events occurred which 

 gave a fresh impetus to geography. The 

 completion of a railroad across the conti- 

 nent had a profound significance and im- 

 portance. It was a bond of iron which, 

 shortening the time and distance between 

 East and West, bound them closer in ties of 

 affection and interest. The Western pioneer 

 of '49 and '50 could revisit his old home 

 and friends in the East, and opportunity 

 was afforded to many in the East to get 

 some personal knowledge of the boundless 

 West. 



In 1867 Alaska was purchased. The dis- 

 cussions in Congress and out preceding and 

 following that purchase were spread abroad 

 and taught Alaskan geography to the 

 masses; and yet there was little to teach, 

 for but little was known. The government, 

 the great agency of geographic research in 

 this country, at once began to explore its 

 new purchase, to survey and to map it. 

 This work has, with varying vicissitudes, 

 continued to this very year, when the work 

 of exploration and survey is, under the 

 stimulus of gold discoveries, being con- 

 ducted on a scale never hitherto attempted 

 there. It was in that same year, 1867, 



that Major J. W. Powell made his adven- 

 turous voyage down the Colorado river and 

 brought the world its first clear knowledge 

 of the Grand Canon, greatest of all Nature's 

 wonders in our land. It was shortly after 

 this that from the Hayden Survey came 

 tidings of that region of wonders — the 

 Yellowstone Park. 



In the thirteen years immediately follow- 

 ing the Civil War three national surveys 

 were engaged in the West in gathering in- 

 formation as to the character and extent of 

 the natural resources of the Western Ter- 

 ritories — Territories, for the most part, 

 then containing few inhabitants but Indi- 

 ans. The rise of these surveys was rapid, 

 the results secured interesting and valu- 

 able, and their rivalry and clashing inevi- 

 table. Many thousands of square miles of 

 territory were roughly mapped out, and 

 many books and reports, both popular and 

 scientific, were produced. 



In 1878 a reorganization was proposed 

 and the National Academy of Sciences 

 asked to submit a plan. This it did, and 

 submitted it to Congress. The outcome was 

 the present United States Geological Sur- 

 vey, created in March, 1879. It replaced 

 the prior organizations, familiarly known 

 as the Hayden, Powell and Wheeler Sur- 

 veys. 



The work laid out for the newly-created 

 Geological Survey was geological, and its 

 field the national dmnain. What is the na- 

 tional domain F Is it restricted to the Terri- 

 tories and places actually occupied by the 

 United States, or does it embrace every spot 

 where the Stars and Stripes may float ? 

 Congress, after a long debate, answered this 

 question and authorized surveys to be made 

 in every part of our whole Union. Again, 

 geological investigations can not be satis- 

 factorily made, nor geological results satis- 

 factorily exhibited, without maps, topo- 

 graphic maps — i. e., maps which show the 

 shapes and forms as well as positions on the 



