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settlement, and mineral development was fairly well satisfied. Its place 
was being taken by need for more intimate and exact information about 
mineral deposits, mining operations, statistics, and for like intensive 
attention to each of the natural sciences. Even more precise methods of 
survey and for the collection of engineering data were becoming necessary. 
The time when one could run the gamut of the natural sciences was passing. 
An indication of the trend of the time was given in 1884, when the 
operation of the Geological Survey was searchingly investigated by a 
Select Committee of the House of Commons on Geological Surveys. This 
Committee commented mainly upon the need for greater attention to the 
mineral industry and for the collection of mining statistics. Its conclusions 
prepared the way for a new Survey Act in 1890, according to which 
“No person shall be appointed to this Department unless he is a science 
graduate of either a Canadian or foreign university, or of the Mining School of London, 
or the Ecole des Mines of Paris, or of some other recognized science school of standing 
” “The duties, objects, and purposes of the Department shall be to make 
a full and scientific examination and survey of the geological structure, mineralogy, mines, 
and mining resources of Canada and of its fauna and flora; to maintain a museum of geo- 
logical and natural history; to collect and to publish full statistics of the mineral 
production and of the mining and metallurgical industry of Canada etc. 
Compared with previous Acts great stress was laid upon the scientific 
qualifications of Survey officers and upon the duties of the Survey to the 
mineral industry. 
An adequate response to this command was delayed for over fifteen 
years and during the latter part of that period, a pressure for readjustment 
accumulated both within and outside the Survey. In 1901 there was 
created in the Department of the Interior, outside the Geological Survey, 
an organization under a Superintendent of Mines to collect mineral statis- 
tics and other information about the mining industry, Dr. Eugene Haanel 
being made Superintendent. In 1906 another Act, similar in its terms to 
the Act of 1890, was passed, but this was replaced within a year by another 
“Act to create a Department of Mines” of radically different intention. 
From 1842 until 1877 the Geological Survey had been an independent 
organization, with the status of a government department, and its reports 
were addressed either to The Governor General or to the Secretary of 
State. By the Act of 1877 it continued as a separate department under 
the Minister of the Interior and the Director had all the standing of a 
Deputy Minister except the franking privilege. The Act of 1907 created 
a Department of Mines under a Minister of Mines who would also be the 
Minister of one or another of the existing Departments. The original 
functions of the Geological Survey were divided between the Survey and 
a newly constituted Mines Branch, with the intent to invest the Mines 
Branch with all work pertaining directly to the mineral industry and to 
leave to the Survey surveying and scientific investigation. Museum work 
became a function of both branches and a Museum of Geology and Natural 
History in the Department was specified. 
Practical interpretation of the Mines Act fell chiefly to the lot of 
three men. Dr. Eugene Haanel, then Superintendent of Mines, in the 
Department of the Interior, was appointed Director of the Mines Branch 
and held this new position until 1921. Although he had had no previous 
connexion with the Geological Survey, and a comparatively brief one with 
mining affairs in Canada, he was a splendidly educated man, of constructive 
