80 THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



public land laws, investigates problems of water utilization, 

 and studies the ground water supplies of the arid public lands. 

 In this branch are prepared for publication all the water sup- 

 ply papers published by the Survey. 



Of the 934 permanent employees of the Survey on June 30, 

 1917, 102 constituted the personnel of the Water Resources 

 Branch. The branch is organized in six divisions: 



1. Administrative and General ' 



2. Division of Surface Waters 



3. Division of Ground Waters 



4. Division of Water Utilization 



5. Division of Enlarged and Stock-Raising Home- 

 steads 



6. Division of Quality of Water. 



Division of Surface Waters. The Division of Surface 

 Waters, under the direct supervision of a hydraulic engineer, 

 is engaged primarily in measuring the flow of rivers. It also 

 carries on special investigations of conditions affecting stream 

 flow and the utilization of streams. 



At selected places, known as gaging stations, measurements 

 of discharge are made and other data are collected from which 

 the daily flow of streams is computed. On June 30, 1917, 

 there were 1,178 gaging stations, only 36 of which, however, 

 were maintained by the Survey alone, all the rest being main- 

 tained in cooperation with other services of the government, 

 with private persons, and with states and municipalities. 



The work of the gaging stations, as well as all other field 

 investigations incident to the work of the division, is super- 

 vised from district offices, of which there are 17, in- 

 cluding one in Hawaii. Data collected from the district of- 

 fices are transmitted to the Washington office, where they are 

 reviewed in the computing section and prepared for publica- 

 tion. This review insures accuracy in the data and brings the 

 results from different parts of the country to a uniform stand- 



