April 17, 1885.1 



SCIENCE. 



329 



53. A. — Nautical almanac office. 



54. A. — Naval observatory and chronometers. 



55. A. — Compass and magnetic observatory. 



56. Bureau of steam engineering. 



57. Bureau of construction and repairs. 



58. B. — Bureau of medicine and surgery. 



59. B. — Museum of hygiene. 



POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. 



60. A. — Topographical division. 



INTERIOR DEPARTMENT. 



61. A. — General land-office. 



62. C. — Patent-office (deals with all the sciences 



and their applications). 



63. D. — Bureau of education. 



64. Commissioner of railroads. 



65. Geological and geographical survey. 



66. D. — Census office. 



67. Entomological commission. 



68. National museum. 



Agriculture bureau. 



69. B. — Department of statistician and meteor- 



ologist. 



70. B. — Department of entomologist. 



71. B. — Department of botanist. 



72. B. — Department of chemist. 



73. B. — Department of microscopist. 



74. B. — Department of forester. 



75. B. — Department of experimental gardener. 



76. B. — National board of health. 



77. C. — Civil-service commission. 



Commissioners for the government of the District of 

 Columbia. 



78. B. — Health office. 



79. A. — Engineer's office. 



80. A. — Surveyor's office. 



81. D. — Superintendent of public schools. 



82. Smithsonian institution. 



83. B. — U.S. fish-commission (report to senate 



directly) . 

 84: B. — Bureau of ethnology. 



85. D. — National museum. 



86. D. — Collections of U. S. geological surveys. 



87. A. — Polaris report. 



This list is sufficiently impressive. It is evident, 

 that, in the growth of our nation and government, 

 it has been necessary to undertake many works of 

 general utility to the country, and to attack many 

 questions in the sciences and the arts on which in- 

 formation is needed, either for the benefit of the 



legislative and the executive departments directly, 

 or else with a view of distributing accurate infor- 

 mation of immediate value broadcast throughout 

 the land, for the benefit of the people at large. 



Every thing relating to state relations, — diplo- 

 macy, war, law, finance, — it was easily seen in the 

 beginning, must be conducted by the federal gov- 

 ernment. But matters of public domain — health, 

 internal commerce, post-office, education, agricul- 

 ture, patents, etc. — also demanded attention; and 

 the departments of the interior, the land-office, and 

 the bureau of agriculture, were provided. These 

 special matters have so increased and subdivided, 

 and have been so promiscuously assigned to various 

 government bureaus, that often it is difficult to see 

 any necessary connection between the nature of the 

 work and the general character of the department 

 under which it is now being conducted. If we 

 were to re-arrange these eighty-seven items accord- 

 ing to some approximate estimate of the intrinsic 

 correlation of work, we should probably put the 

 items marked A into one group: these all relate to 

 surveys of land, with attending geodesy, standards 

 of measurement, astronomical, physical, meteoro- 

 logical, oceanic, and geological work, and to such 

 internal improvements as utilize the preceding. 



In a second group, B, we should place all that 

 relate to life and growth, health and disease, in the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms. 



We should make a third group, C, of all that 

 relates to manufacture of currency. 



In the fourth group, D, we put all relating to the 

 statistics and dissemination of useful knowledge. 



This classification is theoretical or philosophical. 

 If, on the other hand, we attempt something merely 

 practical, we will perhaps re-arrange our subjects 

 by simply selecting for the chief of each group that 

 office which has at present the most successful 

 organization, or which, being the largest, could 

 most easily bear the addition of other branches. 

 This would redistribute government work into the 

 following bureaus: — 



1. Bureau of surveys (including geodesy, as- 



tronomy, economic and military topogra- 

 phy, geology, mineralogy, ethnology). 



2. Bureau of hydrography and coast defence 



(including lighthouse and life-saving ser- 

 vice). 



3. Bureau of standards and adulterations (in- 



cluding physical and chemical laboratories 

 for testing). 



4. Bureau of hygiene. 

 5 Bureau of statistics. 

 6. Bureau of agriculture. 



