Report of Committee on Natural History Survey. 603 
vey, with an appropriation of $10,000 per annum. It is to be 
noted that this is a geological survey only, and does not pro¬ 
vide for topography or for natural history. 
Government of Proposed Survey .—The Iowa survey, the last 
to be established in the northwest, is governed by a board, con¬ 
sisting of the governor of the state, the state auditor, the 
president of the state university, the president of the agri¬ 
cultural college, and the president of the Iowa academy of 
science. It will be seen that this board is very similar in its 
constitution to that of the proposed survey of Wisconsin. We 
have no separate agricultural college, and therefore the pres¬ 
ident of the university stands for the entire university, which 
includes the agricultural department. As the proposed Wis¬ 
consin survey provides for the preparation of school manuals, 
it was thought that the state superintendent should be a mem¬ 
ber of the governing body. In Wisconsin we have no state 
auditor, but the bills of the survey will be audited by the state 
auditing committee, as are all of the state expenditures. As one 
of the objects of the survey is a study of the foods and enemies 
of fish, the president of the commissioners of fisheries was 
made the fifth member of the board. 
Cost of Survey. —Finally, attention is called to the fact that 
the small sum of $15,000 per annum is asked to carry on the 
work of the survey. The amount has been placed by the Acad¬ 
emy at the minimum at which it will be possible to begin the 
lines of work planned. If the appropriation is cut down, it is 
certain that the superintendent will find it neccessary to con¬ 
centrate the money at the outset upon some of the needs of the 
state, to the sacrifice of others equally pressing. To carry on 
the work with a reasonable degree of speed in all lines, there 
should be at the service of the commissioners $20,000 instead 
of $15,000, but it was thought that until the survey could jus¬ 
tify its existence by material and educational returns to the 
state, it would be wiser not to ask for more than $15,000 
per annum. 
Importance of Prompt Action .—Can this work be wisely de¬ 
ferred? Every year which passes without a survey results in 
great material and educational loss to the state. Some time 
