ACTIVITIES -6i 



secured by this method were thus characterized by Major 

 Powell, subsequently Director of the Geological Survey, in 

 1878, the year before the Survey was created: "No adequate 

 provision is made for securing an accurate classification, and 

 to a large extent the laws are inoperative or practically void; 

 for example, coal lands should be sold at $10 or $20 per 

 acre, but, the department having no means of determining 

 what lands belong to this class, titles to coal lands are usually 

 obtained under the provisions of statutes that relate to lands 

 of other classes — that is, by purchasing at $1.25 per acre, or 

 by homestead or preemption entry." 



Major Powell was accordingly of the opinion that "an ex- 

 amination of the laws will exhibit this fact — that for the 

 classification contemplated therein a thorough survey is neces- 

 sary, embracing the geological and physical characteristics of 

 the entire public domain." The National Academy of Sci- 

 ences, to which Major Powell had expressed this opinion, and 

 which, as already stated in the outline of the origin of the 

 Survey, had been requested by Congress to investigate the 

 entire subject of government surveys, reported that "to meet 

 the requirements of existing laws in the disposition of the 

 agricultural, mineral, pastoral, timber, desert, and swamp 

 lands, a thorough investigation and classification of the acre- 

 age of the public domain is imperatively demanded. The 

 Land Office shall also call upon the United States Geological 

 Survey for all information as to the value and classification 

 of lands." 



In the act creating the Geological Survey, as already stated, 

 Congress provided that it should have charge of the "classifi- 



to convey sufficiently accurate information for the general guidance 

 of the officers who execute the sales. The law also provides a method 

 of proof as to the character of lands, which forms an indispensable 

 stage in the process of sale. Any transaction as to a piece of public 

 land may be challenged before the proper officers, and its character 

 may be determined by competent proof. The present method of sale 

 of the public lands depends, therefore, chiefly upon a rule of law 

 rather than the classification of experts in advance of the procedure 

 of sale." First Annual Report of the Geological Survey, 1880, p. 5. 



