HISTORY 23 



vey during 1888 and 1889 for surveys in the arid lands had 

 also been discontinued. In 1894 the Survey, however, ob- 

 tained a specific appropriation of $12,500 "for gauging the 

 streams and determining the water supply of the United States, 

 including the investigations of underground currents and ar- 

 tesian wells in arid and semiarid sections." This small appro- 

 priation was doubled for the fiscal year 1896 and that amount 

 again doubled for the fiscal year 1897, so that for the three 

 years 1897 to 1899 it stood at $50,000, rising to $70,000 in 

 1900 and $100,000 in 1901, the terms of the appropriation 

 being broadened, however, in 1896 to read : " * * * for 

 gauging streams and determining the water supply of the 

 United States, the investigation of underground currents and 

 artesian wells and the preparation of reports upon the best 

 methods of utilizing the water resources." As a result of the 

 operations conducted under these appropriations, which, 

 though they extended over the whole country, were naturally 

 concentrated in the arid regions, the Survey accumulated a 

 most extensive body of information regarding the water re- 

 sources of the arid regions, particularly with reference to their 

 availability for irrigation. It was but natural, therefore, that 

 upon the passage, in 1902, of the reclamation act, the ad- 

 ministration of the act should be entrusted by the Secretary of 

 the Interior to the Survey. 



The Reclamation Service was first organized merely as a 

 division of the so-called Hydrographic Branch, the chief of 

 that branch acting also as chief engineer of the Reclamation 

 Service. As the work of that service passed, however, from 

 the stage of planning to that of actual construction, its asso- 

 ciation with the Hydrographic Branch and then with the Sur- 

 vey itself became more and more nominal until, in 1907, pur- 

 suant to a recommendation made by the Director of the Sur- 

 vey, it became an independent service, subject to control only 

 by the Secretary of the Interior, its chief engineer, the former 

 chief of the Hydrographic Branch of the Survey, becoming 

 its director. Since that time the relation between the Survey 



