G. 0. Smith — Government Geological Surveys. 1ST 



exploration ; Charles D. Walcott, who was Director from 

 1894 to 1907, the period of the Survey's greatest expan- 

 sion, made the largest contribution to the Paleozoic stra- 

 tigraphy and paleontology of the West ; and the present 

 Director spent seven field seasons in the Northern Cas- 

 cades and one in a mining district in Utah. The scope of 

 the activities both East and West as developed during 

 the 39 years since the establishment of the new bureau 

 can be best described, perhaps, in terms of its present 

 functions as expressed in the organization of to-day. 



The growth of the Survey is measured in the increase 

 of annual appropriation from $106,000 in 1879-80 to the 

 amount available for the current year — $1,925,520, not 

 including half a million dollars from War Department 

 appropriations being spent in the topographic work of 

 the Survey. The corresponding increase in personnel 

 has been from 39, listed in the first report, to 911 holding 

 regular appointments at the present time, divided among 

 the different branches as follows : A scientific force of 

 173 in the Geologic Branch, 169 in the Water Resources 

 Branch, 71 in the Topographic Branch, and 15 in the 

 Land Classification Board, with a clerical force of 168 

 divided among the same branches, and the remainder 

 the technical and clerical employees of the publication 

 and administrative branches. These personnel statistics 

 are not expressive of normal conditions, since a large 

 number of the topographic engineers are commissioned 

 officers and thus are not included on the civilian roll, 

 while, on the other hand, the classification of the stock- 

 raising homestead lands makes the technical force of the 

 Water Resources Branch unusually large this year. 



The primary aim of the Geological Survey is geo- 

 logic, whether directed by authority of law toward 

 the "examination of the geological structure, mineral 

 resources, and products of the national domain," toward 

 the preparation of the authorized "reports upon gen- 

 eral and economic geology and paleontology," of the 

 "geologic map of the United States," or of the "report 

 on the mineral resources of the United States," or 

 toward the "continuation of the investigation of the 

 mineral resources of Alaska" or "chemical and physi- 

 cal researches relating to the geology of the United 

 States." The spirit and the purpose of the Sur- 

 vev's work in all these fields are not believed to have 



