8 CLASSIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 



that may be enacted can be made so definite as not to require the 

 exercise of well-informed judgment in their execution. To this end 

 examination and classification of the public lands constitute an initial 

 step in their disposition for development and settlement. That a few 

 decades ago settlement and development commonly outstripped clas- 

 sification and often far preceded even the legal disposition of the land 

 itself is no good reason for failure to follow the more logical pro- 

 cedure now. 



The principle of land classification is inherent in many of the 

 public-land laws, and classification of lands has in late years been 

 specifically recognized by Congress as a step indispensable to the ad- 

 ministration of the national domain. This public estate is even now 

 so extensive and valuable as to demand a business policy. Making 

 allowance for the alienated lands included within the land units de- 

 scribed in the various coal-land areas withdrawn by executive order 

 for classification, and also estimating the expected reduction of these 

 withdrawals by classification of parts of them as noncoal land, the 

 people of the United States possess to-day 44,000,000 acres of coal 

 lands, exclusive of the Alaskan coal fields. A large proportion of 

 this acreage, however, is underlain by the lower-grade coals. In the 

 almost equally important items of oil and phosphate rock the exist- 

 ing withdrawals indicate national ownership of over 2,000,000 acres 

 of oil and gas lands and nearly 3,000,000 acres of lands which will 

 furnish our agricultural regions their future supply of mineral phos- 

 phate. Nor have all the agricultural lands been alienated. Public 

 and privaie irrigation projects will reclaim several millions of acres 

 of arid land, and dry farming under the enlarged-homestead act will 

 materially add to the area of farm lands. 



To insure appropriate disposition and to secure highest use of 

 the Nation's lands, scientific land classification by the United States 

 Geological Survey has been made an integral part of public-land 

 administration. Quantitative knowledge of the land and its re- 

 sources is now made a preliminary, first, to disposition of lands 

 under the various settlement and development laws ; second, to reser- 

 vation of lands from present acquisition pending the enactment of 

 adequate legislation; and third, to valuation of lands under a 

 statute which provides for their disposition at prices expressing 

 known value. 



The purpose of land classification, then, is highest utilization, and 

 to attain this end it has been necessary to coordinate the work of 

 scientific investigation with the administrative functions of the 

 Department of the Interior. The large participation of the Geo- 

 logical Survey in the public-land administration has naturally pre- 

 sented problems involving changes both in office and field organiza- 

 tion and in executive and scientific methods. For these changes 



