12 CLASSIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 



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

 preemption entry. An examination of the laws will exhibit this fact— that for 

 the classification contemplated therein a thorough survey is necessary, embrac- 

 ing the geological and physical characteristics of the entire public domain. 



After extended hearings before the House and Senate conoinittees 

 and the publication of many documents bearing upon the questions 

 involved, Congress, in March, 1879, agreed upon a law which em- 

 bodied the recommendations of the Academy of Sciences for the 

 abolition of the Territorial surveys and the establishment of the 

 United States Geological Survey but made no provision for the 

 mensuration survey also recommended by the Academy. 



Under the law approved March 3, 1879 (20 Stat., 377, 394), estab- 

 lishing the office of Director of the Geological Survey, it is pro- 

 vided — 



That this officer shall have the direction of the geological survey and the 

 classification of the public lands and examination of the geological structure, 

 mineral resources, and products of the national domain. 



Clarence King, the first Director, who entered upon his duties 

 May 24, 1879, discusses the functions of the then newly created 

 organization in his first annual report to the Secretary of the Inte- 

 rior dated November 1, 1880. In this discussion he states that — 



Two special and distinct branches of duty are imposed upon the Director of 

 the Geological Survey — (1) the classification of the public land and (2) the 

 examination of the geological -structure and mineral resources. 



As regards the classification of the public lands, the text of the law leaves 

 an uncertainty whether this classification is intended to be a scientific exposi- 

 tion of the kinds of lands embraced in the national domain, such as arable, 

 irrigable, timber, desert, mineral, coal, iron, showing the practical values and 

 adaptabilities of the various classes or kinds of soil and surface, or whether, 

 on the other hand, it was intended to- furnish a basis of classification upon which 

 the Government should part title to portions of the public, domain. * * * 



Upon examination of the existing land system, I have assumed that Congress, 

 in directing me to make a classification of the public lands, could not have in- 

 tended to supersede the machinery of the Land Office and substitute a classifi- 

 cation to be executed by another bureau of the Government without having 

 distinctly provided for the necessary changes within the Land Office and ad- 

 justment of relations between the two bureaus. * * » 



I have therefore concluSed that the Intention of Congress was to begin a 

 rigid scientific classification of the lands of the national domain, not for pur- 

 poses of aiding the machinery of the General Land Office by furnishing a 

 basis of sale, but for the general Information of the people of the country, and 

 to produce a series of land maps which should show all those features upon 

 which intelligent agriculturists, miners, engineers, and timbermen might here- 

 after base their operations, and which would obviously be of the highest value 

 for all students of the political . economy and resources of the United States. 

 Studies of this sort, entirely aside from the administration of the Land Office, 

 can be made of the highest practical value; and to this end a careful beginning 

 has been made. 



