Even a Federal Bureau must be considered a product of evolution: the
past of the United States Geological Survey far antedates March 3, 1879.
The scope of endeavor, the refinement of method, and especially the
personnel of the newly created service of that day were largely
inherited from pioneer organizations. Therefore a review of the
country’s record of surveys under Government auspices becomes more than
a grateful acknowledgment by the present generation of geologists of the
credit due to those who blazed the way; it shows the sequence and
progress in the contributions made by geologic science to industry.
The earlier stages in industrial evolution mentioned by
Hess[96]—exploitation, development, and maturity—determine a somewhat
similar progressive development in geologic investigation, so that
geographic exploration and geologic reconnaissance of the broadest type
are the normal contribution of exact science whenever and wherever a
nation is in the state of exploitation and initial development of its
mineral and agricultural resources. The refinements of detailed surveys
and quantitative examinations belong rather to the next stage of
intensive utilization, or, indeed, they are the essentials preliminary
to full use. Thus regrets that the results of present-day work were not
available fifty years ago are largely vain: the fathers may not have
been without the vision; they simply did the work as their day and
generation needed it done.
Twenty years ago S. F. Emmons, in a presidential address before the
Geological Society of Washington, divided the history of Governmental
surveys in this country into two periods, separated in a general way by
the Civil War. The first of these was the period of geographic
exploration, the second that of geologic exploration. Mr. Emmons of
course regarded this subdivision as not hard and fast, yet his dividing
line seems logical, for not only did the military activities in the East
necessarily suspend exploration in the West, but after the war national,
political, and economic considerations led naturally to the demand for a
more exact knowledge of the vast national domain in the West. Geography
and geology are so closely related that Mr. Emmons’s distinction of the
two periods is useful only with the limitations inferentially set by
himself—namely, that while geologic investigation entered into most of
the explorations of the earlier period, the geologist was regarded as
only an accessory in these exploring expeditions; on the other hand, in
the later surveys the topographic work was developed because it was
essential to the geologic investigations.
The year 1818 was a notable one in American geology, first of all in the
appearance of the American Journal of Science, itself so perfect a
vehicle for geological thought that, as is so well stated by Dr. G. P.
Merrill, “a perusal of the numbers from the date of issue down to the
present time will alone afford a fair idea of the gradual progress of
American geology.” The beginning of publications on New England geology
appeared that year in Edward Hitchcock’s first paper on the Connecticut
Valley (1, 105, 1818) and the Danas’ (S. L. and J. F.) detailed geologic
and mineralogic description of Boston and vicinity; and the “Index” of
Amos Eaton (noticed in this Journal, =1=, 69) was the first of that long
list of notable contributions to American stratigraphy that are to be
credited to the New York geologists.
In the present discussion, too, the year 1918 can be regarded as in a
way the centennial of Government geologic surveys, for it was in 1818
that Henry R. Schoolcraft began his trip to the Mississippi
Valley—perhaps the first geologic reconnaissance into the West—and it
was his work in the lead region which served to make him a member of the
Cass expedition sent out by the Secretary of War in 1820 to examine the
metallic wealth of the Lake Superior region. The earlier Government
explorations of Lewis and Clark, in 1803–7, and of Pike, in 1805–7, were
so exclusively geographic that geologic work under Federal auspices must
be regarded as beginning with Schoolcraft and with Edwin James, the
geologist of the expedition of Major Long in 1819–20 to the Rocky
Mountains. Both these observers published reports that are valuable as
contributions to the knowledge of littleknown regions.
Any description of geologic work under the Federal Government that
included no reference to the State surveys would be inadequate, for in
both date of execution and stage of development the work of the State
geologists must be given precedence. In Merrill’s Contributions to the
History of American Geology,[97] whose modest title fails even to
suggest that this work not only furnishes the most useful chronologic
record of the progress of the science on the American continent but is
in fact a very thesaurus of incidents touching the personal side of
geology, the author by his division of his subject shows that four
decades of the era of State surveys elapsed before the era of national
surveys began.
Thus the geologic surveys of some of the Eastern States antedate by
several decades any Federal organization of comparable geologic scope,
and in investigations directed to local utilitarian problems these
pioneer geologists working in the older settled States of the East were
in fact already conducting work as detailed in type as much of that
attempted by the Federal geologists of the later period. Even to-day it
is true in a general way that the State geologist can and should attack
many of his local problems with intensive methods and with detail of
results that are neither practicable nor desirable for the larger
interstate investigations or for examinations in newer territory. All
this relation of State and Federal work must be looked upon as normal
evolutionary development of geologic science in America.
One who reads the names of the Federal geologists of the early days,
beginning with Jackson and Owen and following with such leaders in
Federal work as Gilbert, Chamberlin, King, R. D. Irving, Pumpelly, Van
Hise, and Walcott, may note that these were all connected in their
earlier work with State surveys. Nor has the relation been one-sided,
for among the State geologists Whitney, Blake, Mather, Newberry, J. G.
Norwood, Purdue, Bain, Gregory, Ashley, Kirk, W. H. Emmons, DeWolf,
Mathews, Brown, Landes, Moore, and Crider received their field training
in part or wholly as members of a Federal Survey. Moreover, under the
present plan of effective cooperation of several of the State surveys
with the United States Geological Survey, it is often difficult to
differentiate between the two in either personnel or results, for it
even happens that the publishing organization may not have been the
major contributor. The full record of American geology, past and
present, can not be set forth in terms of Federal auspices alone.
The three decades preceding the Civil War, then, constitute the era of
State surveys, well described by Merrill as at first characterized by a
contagious enthusiasm for beginning geologic work, later by a more
normal condition in which every available geologist seems to have been
quietly at work, and finally by renewed activity in creating new
organizations. The net result was that Louisiana and Oregon seem to have
been the only States not having at least one geological survey.
[Illustration:
From “Contributions to the History of American Geology”
by George P. Merrills.
]
The first specific appropriation by the Federal Government for geologic
investigation appears to have been made in 1834, when a supplemental
appropriation for surveys of roads and canals under the War Department,
authorized in 1824, contained the item “of which sum five thousand
dollars shall be appropriated and applied to geological and
mineralogical survey and researches.” In July, 1834, Mr. G. W.
Featherstonhaugh was appointed United States geologist and employed
under Colonel Abert, U. S. Topographical Engineers, to “personally
inspect the mineral and geological character” of the public lands of the
Ozark Mountain region. Overlooking the incidental fact that this
Englishman—a man of scientific attainment and large interest in public
affairs—was never naturalized,[98] it must be placed to the credit of
this first of United States geologists that within seven months he
completed his field work and returned to Washington, and on February 17,
1835, his report was transmitted to Congress. Two years earlier
Featherstonhaugh had memorialized Congress for aid in the preparation of
a geologic map of the whole territory of the United States, and in
connection with this project he suggested that geology as an aid to
military engineering should have a place in the curriculum at West
Point. This first United States geologist also appears to have combined
an appreciation of the practical worth of “the mineral riches of our
country, their quality, quantity, and the facility of procuring them,”
with an interest in the more scientific side of geology, though his
hypotheses regarding both economic geology and stratigraphic and
structural geology have not won the endorsement of all later workers in
the same regions. In all these respects, however, Featherstonhaugh may
stand as a fairly good prototype. His contributions to international
affairs subsequent to his scientific service to the United States are of
interest; he served as one of Her Majesty’s commissioners in the
settlement of the Canadian-United States boundary question in 1839–40
and made an examination of the disputed area, and after the settlement
of this controversy he was appointed British Consul for the Department
of the Seine, France, where in 1848 he personally engineered the escape
of Louis Philippe from Havre.
The Federal geologic work thus started was soon continued in surveys of
wider scope and more thorough accomplishment. The position of the
Government as the proprietor of mineral lands in the Upper Mississippi
Valley led to their examination. These Government lands containing lead
had been reserved from sale for lease since 1807, although no leases
were issued until 1822. The amount of illegal entry and consequent
refusal of smelters and miners to pay royalty after 1834 forced the
issue upon the attention of Congress, and in 1839 President Van Buren
was requested to present to Congress a plan for the sale of the public
mineral lands. In carrying out this policy Dr. David Dale Owen was
selected to make the necessary survey.
Owen had served as an assistant on the State Survey of Tennessee and as
the first State geologist of Indiana, and he organized the new work
promptly and effectively. Although suffering from the handicap
unfortunately known by geologists of the present day—the receipt late in
the season (August 17, 1839) of authority to begin work—within exactly a
month he had his force of 139 assistants organized into 24 field
parties, instructed in “such elementary principles of geology as were
necessary to their performance of the duties required of them.” His plan
of campaign provided for a northward drive at a predetermined rate of
traverse for each party, with periodic reports to himself at appointed
stations, “to receive which reports and to examine the country in
person” he crossed the area under survey eleven times. The result of
such masterful leadership was the completion of the exploration of all
the lands comprehended in his orders in two months and six days, and his
report on this great area—about 11,000 square miles—bears date of April
2, 1840.
Eight years later Doctor Owen made a survey of an even larger area,
continuing his examination northward to Lake Superior. Again his report
was published promptly, and he continued for several years his
examination of the Northwest Territory, submitting his final report in
1851. It is interesting to note that in his earlier report Doctor Owen
subscribed himself as “Principal Agent to explore the Mineral Lands of
the United States,” but that in the later report he was “U. S. Geologist
for Wisconsin.” The two surveys together covered 57,000 square miles.
During the same period similar surveys were being made in northern
Michigan by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, 1847–48, and Foster and Whitney,
1849–51. These surveys also had been hastened by the “copper fever” of
1844–46, with wholesale issue of permits and leases, Congress in 1847
authorizing the sale of the mineral lands and a geological survey of the
Lake Superior district. The execution of these surveys under Jackson and
under Foster and Whitney and the prompt publication in 1851 of the maps
of the whole region materially helped to establish copper mining on a
more conservative basis. and the development of the Lake Superior region
was rapid.[99]
These land-classification surveys, with their definite purpose,
represent the best geologic work of the time. The plan necessitated
thoroughgoing field work with considerable detail and prompt publication
of systematic reports, and in the working up of the results specialists
like James Hall and Joseph Leidy contributed, while F. B. Meek was an
assistant of Owen. It is worthy of note that had not Doctor Houghton,
the State geologist of Michigan, met an untimely death in 1847,
effective cooperation of the State Survey with the Federal officials
would have combined geologic investigation with the execution of the
linear surveys.[100]
Belonging to the same period of geologic exploration was the service of
J. D. Dana, as United States Geologist on the Wilkes Exploring
Expedition, the disaster to which compelled his return from the Pacific
Coast overland and resulted in his geologic observations on Oregon and
northern California.
The military expeditions during the decade 1850–60 and the earlier
expeditions of Fremont added to the geographic knowledge of the Western
country and also contributed to geologic science, largely through
collections of rocks and fossils, usually reported on by the specialists
of the day. Thus the names of Hall, Conrad, Hitchcock, and Meek appear
in the published reports on these explorations, while Marcou, Blake,
Newberry, Gibbs, Evans, Hayden, Parry, Shumard, Schiel, Antisell, and
Engelmann were geologists attached to the field expeditions. In 1852
geologic investigation was seemingly so popular as to necessitate the
statutory prohibition “there shall be no further geological survey by
the Government unless hereafter authorized by law.”
Certain of these explorations had a specific purpose: several of them
sought a practical route for a transcontinental railroad; another a new
wagon road across Utah and Nevada; and one under Colonel Pope, with G.
G. Shumard as geologist, was sent out “for boring Artesian Wells along
the line of the 32d Parallel” in New Mexico. The published reports
varied greatly in scientific value and in carefulness of preparation,
while the publication of at least two reports was delayed until long
after the war, and the manuscript of another was lost. The report of the
expedition of Major Emory contained a colored geologic map of the
western half of the country, a pioneer publication, for the map prepared
by Marcou extended only to the 106th meridian.
Thus in the first period of Government surveys, covering about forty
years, the great West, with its wealth of public lands, was well
traversed by exploratory surveys, which furnished, however, only general
outlines for a comprehension of the stratigraphy and structure of
mountain and valley, plain and plateau. To an even less degree was there
any realization of the economic possibilities of the vast territory west
of the Mississippi. President Jefferson, in planning the Lewis and Clark
expedition, had stated his special interest in the mineral resources of
the region to be traversed. Nearly forty years later Doctor Owen was
strongly impressed with the commercial promise of the region he
surveyed. His reports contain analyses of ores and statistics of
production; he compared the lead output of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois
with that of Europe and foretold the value of the iron, copper, and zinc
deposits of the area; he outlined the extent of the Illinois coal field;
and he laid equal emphasis upon the agricultural possibilities of the
region. Indeed, so optimistic were Owen’s general conclusions that he
referred to his separate township plats, with their detailed
descriptions, as the basis for his sanguine opinions, realizing that
“the explorer is apt to become the special pleader.” With equal breadth
of view and thoroughness of execution the surveys of Foster and Whitney
laid the foundation for the development of the copper and iron resources
of the Lake Superior region, and although these areas were largely
wilderness and not adapted to rapid traverse or easy observation the
reports on their explorations nevertheless compare most favorably with
the contributions of geologists working in the more hospitable regions
in the older States.
The period following the Civil War naturally became one of national
expansion, the faces of many were turned westward, and exploration of
the national domain for its industrial possibilities took on fresh
interest. Home-seekers and miners largely made up this army of peaceful
invasion, and the winning of the West began on a scale quite different
from that of the days of the military path-finding expeditions of
Fremont and other Army officers. Thus the nation was aroused to the task
of investigating its public lands and Congress gave the support needed
to make geologic exploration possible on a large scale.
Geologic surveys of a high order were continued in the older States, as
shown by the contributions during this period of J. P. Lesley and G. H.
Cook in the East, W. C. Kerr, E. W. Hilgard, and E. A. Smith in the
South, and J. S. Newberry, C. A. White, Raphael Pumpelly, T. C.
Chamberlin, Alexander Winchell, and T. B. Brooks in the Central States.
To the north the Canadian Survey, organized in 1841 under Logan, had
continued under the same sturdy leadership until 1869, when the
experienced and talented Doctor Selwyn became Director. As contrasted
with the short careers of most of the State Surveys and with the
temporary character of all of the Federal undertakings in geologic
investigation, the continuance of the Canadian Geological Survey for
more than half a century under two directors gave opportunity for
continuity of effort in making known to the people of the Dominion its
resources and at the same time contributing to the world much pure
science.
Passing with simple mention the two Government expeditions into the
Black Hills, which afforded opportunity for geologic exploration by N.
H. Winchell in 1874 and by Jenney and Newton in 1875, the record of
geologic work under Government auspices in the period immediately
following the Civil War groups itself around the names of four
leaders—Hayden, King, Powell, and Wheeler. The four organizations,
distinguished commonly by the names of these four masterful organizers,
occupied the Western field more or less continuously from 1867 to 1878,
and the sum total of their contributions to geography and geology was
large indeed. In the words of Clarence King,[101] “Eighteen hundred and
sixty-seven, therefore, marks, in the history of national geological
work, a turning point, when the science ceased to be dragged in the dust
of rapid exploration and took a commanding position in the professional
work of the country.” Together these four expeditions covered half a
million square miles, or more than a third of the area of the United
States west of the one-hundredth meridian, and the cost of all this work
was approximately two million dollars, which was a small fraction of its
value to the nation counting only the impetus given to settlement and
utilization.
As viewed from a distance of nearly half a century, these four surveys
differed much in plan of organization, scope of purpose, and success of
execution, so that comparison would have little value except as possibly
bearing upon the work of the larger organization which followed them and
became the heir not only to much that had been attained by these pioneer
surveys but also to the great task uncompleted by them. So, if in the
earliest days of the present United States Geological Survey there may
have been a certain partisanship in tracing derived characters in the
new organization, it is even now worth while to recognize the real
origin of much that is credited to present-day development.
Dr. F. V. Hayden was the first of these Survey leaders to engage in
geological exploration. He visited the Badlands as early as 1853, and
his connection with subsequent expeditions was interrupted only by his
service as a surgeon in the Federal Army during the war. In 1867,
however, Hayden resumed his geologic work as United States Geologist
in Nebraska, operating under direction of the Commissioner of the
General Land Office. In the following eleven years the activities of
the Hayden Survey—the “Geological and Geographical Survey of the
Territories”—extended into Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, and
Idaho, covering with areal surveys 107,000 square miles. This Survey,
as might be expected from the long experience of its leader, made
large contributions to stratigraphy, which involved notable
paleontologic work by Cope, Meek, and Lesquereux. Next in importance
was the structural work of A. C. Peale, W. H. Holmes, Capt. C. E.
Dutton, and Dr. Hayden himself, and the influence of these expeditions
in popularizing geology should not be overlooked. The expedition of
1871 into the geyser region on the upper Yellowstone resulted in the
creation of the first of the national parks. W. H. Holmes began his
artistic contributions to geology in 1872 with this Survey.
Topographic mapping was added to the geologic exploration, James T.
Gardner and A. D. Wilson joining the Hayden Survey after earlier
service on the King Survey and Henry Gannett being a member of
parties, first as astronomer and later as topographer in charge. The
accomplishment of the Hayden Survey itself and the later work of many
of its members show that this organization possessed a corps of strong
men.
The King Survey was a smaller organization, with Congressional
authorization of definite scope and a systematic plan of operation. The
beginning of construction of the Union Pacific terminated the period of
the railroad surveys under the War Department and afforded opportunity
for geologic work that would be more than exploratory: the opening up of
the new country made investigation of its resources logical. This fact
was recognized by Clarence King, who had traversed the same route as a
member of an emigrant train with his friend James T. Gardner. His plan
to make a geological cross section of the Cordilleras, with a study of
the resources along the route of the Pacific railroads, won the support
of Congress, and the “Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel”
was authorized in 1867, with Clarence King as geologist in charge, under
the Chief of Engineers of the Army. Field work was begun in the summer
of that year, and it is interesting to note that Mr. King and his small
force of geological assistants—the two Hagues and S. F. Emmons—began at
the western end of this cross section, and in this and subsequent years
extended the survey from the east front of the Sierra Nevada to
Cheyenne, covering a belt of territory about 100 miles in width. This
comprehensive plan was carried out in the field operations, and the
scientific and economic results were systematically worked up in the
reports, which appeared in 1870–80. The only departure from this plan
was a study of the volcanic mountains Shasta, Rainier, and Hood, in
1870, occasioned by an unexpected and unsolicited appropriation for
field work, and that summer’s work resulted in the discovery of active
glaciers, the first known within the United States.
The Fortieth Parallel Survey is to be credited with contributions to the
knowledge of the stratigraphy of the West, the region traversed being
remarkably representative of the stratigraphic column, to which was
added the paleontologic work of Marsh, Meek, Hall, and Whitfield, while
the attempt was made to interpret the sedimentary record in terms of
Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary geography. King’s plan of survey
included large use of topographic mapping with astronomic base and
triangulation control and contours based upon barometric elevations. The
results were pronounced by an unfriendly critic[102] as “very valuable,
especially from a geological point of view,” but unfortunate in being
the forerunner of work in which Government geologists “have presumed to
arrogate the control of the fundamental operations of a topographic
survey.” To the King Survey must be credited the introduction of
systematic contour mapping and the use of contour maps for purposes of
geology. In two other respects the King Survey contributed largely to
future Government work: microscopical petrography in the United States
may be said to have begun with the visit of Professor Zirkel to this
country as a member of this Survey in 1875, and the report of J. D.
Hague on “Mining Industry” was the fitting expression of the emphasis
then put on the study of the mineral resources of this newly opened
territory, a subject of investigation that was in large part the true
basis of King’s project rather than simply “the immediate excuse for the
Survey.” An earlier influence in the scientific study of ore deposits
had come from Von Richthofen’s investigation of the Comstock Lode in
1865 and his subsequent work with Whitney in California. The incident of
King’s relation to the diamond fraud in Arizona in 1872 furnished a
precedent for public servants of a later day; he investigated the
reported find from scientific interest but exposed it with all the zeal
of a publicist and truth lover. In a word, the Fortieth Parallel Survey
commands our admiration for its brilliant plan, thoroughgoing work in
field and office, and high quality of personnel.
[Illustration: J. W. Powell]
Major J. W. Powell began his large contribution to Government surveys
with his exploration of the Grand Canyon in 1869, the Congressional
recognition of his expedition being limited to an authorization for the
issue of rations by the War Department. Small appropriations were made
in the following years, and in 1874 full authorization was given for the
continuance of his survey in Utah under the Secretary of the Interior
and was followed by the adoption of the name “United States Geographical
and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.” This organization
was the least pretentious of the four operating during this period—it
covered less area, expended less public money, and published much
less—but its contribution to American geology is not to be measured by
miles or pages but by ideas. Its physical environment favored this
survey, and in the work of Powell, Dutton, and Gilbert can be seen the
beginnings of physiography on the heroic scale exemplified in the Grand
Canyon and the High Plateaus. The first use of terms like “base-level of
erosion,” “consequent and antecedent drainage,” and “laccolith” marked
the introduction of new ideas in the interpretation of land sculpture
and geologic structure. The daring boat trip of Powell was no less
brilliant than his simple explanation of the Grand Canyon itself.
“The United States Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian” was
the title given to the explorations made under Lieut. G. M. Wheeler, of
the Engineer Corps, which began with topographic reconnaissances in
Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, specifically authorized by Congress in 1872.
From the standpoint of American geology this could be better known as
the Gilbert Survey, Mr. G. K. Gilbert serving for the three years
1871–73, the later part of the time with the title of chief geological
assistant. Gilbert’s contributions included his description of Basin
Range structure, his first account of old Lake Bonneville, and his
discussion of the erosion phenomena of the desert country. J. J.
Stevenson also served later as a geologist of this Survey, and A. R.
Marvine, E. E. Howell, E. D. Cope, Jules Marcou, and I. C. Russell were
connected with the field parties. Captain Wheeler’s own claim for the
work of his Survey emphasized its geographic side, for he regarded the
results as the partial completion of a systematic topographic survey of
the country.
By 1878, when the Fortieth Parallel Survey had completed the work
planned by its chief, three of these independent surveys still contended
for Federal support and for scientific occupation of the most attractive
portions of the Western country. Unrestrained competition of this kind,
even in the public service, proves as wasteful as unregulated
competition in private business,[103] and Congress appealed to the
National Academy of Sciences for a plan for Government surveys to
“secure the best results at the least possible cost.” Under instructions
by Congress the National Academy considered all the work relating to
scientific surveys and reported to Congress a plan prepared by a special
committee, whose membership included the illustrious names of Marsh,
Dana, Rogers, Newberry, Trowbridge, Newcomb, and Agassiz. This report,
which was adopted by the Academy with only one dissenting vote, grouped
all surveys—geodetic, topographic, land parceling, and economic—under
two distinct heads, surveys of mensuration and surveys of geology. At
that time five independent organizations in three different departments
were carrying on surveys of mensuration, and the Academy recommended
that all such work be combined under the Coast and Geodetic Survey with
the new name Coast and Interior Survey. For the investigation of the
natural resources of the public domain and the classification of the
public lands a new organization was proposed, the United States
Geological Survey. The functions of these two surveys and of a third
coordinate bureau in the Interior Department, the Land Office, were
carefully defined and their interrelations fully recognized and provided
for in the plan presented to Congress. Viewed in the light of 39 years
of experience the National Academy plan would be indorsed by most of us
as eminently practical, and the report stands as a splendid example of
public service rendered by America’s leading scientists. The legislation
which embodied the entire plan, however, failed of passage in Congress.
The natural activity behind the scenes of the conflicting interests
represented by those connected with the several surveys may be seen in
the legislative history of the moves leading up to the creation of the
United States Geological Survey. In the last session of the 45th
Congress the special legislation embodying the recommendations of the
National Academy was included in the Legislative, Executive, and
Judicial Appropriation bill as it passed the House of Representatives,
while the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill carried an item simply making
effective the longer section in the other appropriation bill. The item
in the Legislative appropriation bill created the office of the Director
of the Geological Survey, provided his salary, and defined his duties,
as well as specifically terminating the operations of the three older
organizations. The item in the Sundry Civil bill as it passed the House
appropriated $100,000 for the new Geological Survey, but when this
appropriation bill was reported to the Senate a committee amendment
added the words “of the Territories,” and further amendments offered on
the floor changed the item so as to provide specifically and exclusively
for the continuation of the Hayden Survey. Other amendments provided
small appropriations for the completion of the reports of the Powell and
Wheeler surveys, and the bill passed the Senate in this form. The
Legislative Appropriation bill was similarly pruned, while in the
Senate, of all reference to the proposed new organization. This bill,
however, died in conference, but in the last hours of the session the
conferees on the Sundry Civil bill took unto themselves legislative
powers and transferred from the dead bill to the pending measure all the
language which constitutes the “organic act” of the United States
Geological Survey. This action was denounced in the Senate as “a wide
departure from the authority that is possessed by a conference
committee,” and it was further stated in debate that the inserted
provision which created a new office and discontinued the existing
surveys was one “which neither the Committee of the Senate nor the
Senate itself ever saw.” This assertion was perhaps parliamentarily
sound in that the language was new to the Sundry Civil bill, yet
actually the Senate had only two days before stricken the same proposed
legislation from the pending Legislative Appropriation bill. However,
the House conferees—Representatives Atkins of Tennessee, Hewett of New
York, and Hale of Maine—had realized their tactical advantage, and the
Senate, after a brief debate, voted on March 3 to concur in the report
of the committee of conference, thus reversing all their earlier action,
in which the friends of the Hayden and Wheeler organizations apparently
had commanded more votes than the advocates of the National Academy
plan.
Clarence King was appointed first Director of the United States
Geological Survey on April 3, 1879, and began the work of organization.
With his proven genius for administration, King promptly resolved the
doubt as to the meaning of the term “national domain” in the language
defining the duties of the Director by taking the conservative side and
limiting the work of the new organization to the region west of the 102d
meridian. This region was divided into four geological divisions, and
for economy of time and money field headquarters were established for
these divisions. The Division of the Rocky Mountains was placed under
Mr. Emmons as geologist in charge, the Division of the Colorado under
Captain Dutton, the Division of the Great Basin under Mr. Gilbert, and
the Division of the Pacific under Arnold Hague. The Division of the
Colorado was intended as merely temporary for the purpose of bringing to
completion the scientific work of the Powell Survey. Similarly Dr.
Hayden was given the opportunity to prepare a systematic digest of his
scientific results. This organization of the work and the selection of
geologists in charge showed the relation of the new and the old, and a
glance at the personnel of the new Survey indicates the extent to which
the geologic investigation of the Western country was to continue
without interruption. Of the twenty-four geologists and topographers
listed in the first administrative report, four had been connected with
the Powell Survey, two with the Hayden, three with the Wheeler, and five
with the King Survey.
[Illustration: Clarence King]
In planning the initial work of the United States Geological Survey, the
Director speaks of the “most important geological subjects” and “mining
industries,” of “instructive geological structure” and “great bullion
yield” in the same sentences, so that the intent was plain to make the
geologic investigations both theoretical and practical.
It was expected that the field of operations of this Federal Survey
would be at once extended by Congress over the whole United States, but
the measure making this extension, which would simply carry out the
intent of the framers of the legislation creating the new bureau, passed
the House alone, and it was only by subsequent modification of the
wording of appropriation items that the United States Geological Survey
became national in scope as well as in name. The critical question of
the effective coördination of State and Federal geologic surveys was met
by Director King, who corrected an erroneous impression “industriously
circulated” by stating his policy to be to urge the inauguration and
continuance of State surveys.[104] This was the initial step in the
cooperation between State and Federal surveys which became effective on
a large scale in subsequent years.
Though the Geological Survey has extended its operations over the whole
United States, its largest activities have always been directed toward
the exploration and development of the newer territory in the
public-land States. All four of its directors had their field training
in the West: the name of Major Powell, who succeeded King in 1880, is
inseparably connected with scientific exploration; Charles D. Walcott,
who was Director from 1894 to 1907, the period of the Survey’s greatest
expansion, made the largest contribution to the Paleozoic stratigraphy
and paleontology of the West; and the present Director spent seven field
seasons in the Northern Cascades 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 geologic, 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 general 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 physical researches relating to the geology of the
United States.” The spirit and the purpose of the Survey’s work in all
these fields are not believed to have materially changed from those of
the founders of the science in America. From time to time too much
emphasis may have appeared to be laid upon applied geology as contrasted
with pure science, yet the report of the National Academy to Congress in
terms placed the stress upon economic resources and referred to
paleontology as “necessarily connected” with general and economic
geology. The practical purpose of geologic research under Government
auspices must be recognized by the administrator, whether he be the
paleontologist like Walcott, the philosopher like Powell, or the mining
geologist like King. That the task of steering the true course is no new
problem can be seen from the statement of Owen[105] written 70 years
ago, and these words describe conditions of Government geological work
even to-day:
Scientific researches, which to some may seem purely speculative and
curious, are essential as preliminaries to these practical results.
Further than such necessity dictates, they have not been pushed,
except as subordinate and incidental, and chiefly at such periods as,
under the ordinary requirements of public service, might be regarded
as leisure moments; so that the contributions to science thus
incidentally afforded, and which a liberal policy forbade to neglect,
may be considered, in a measure, a voluntary offering, tendered at
little or no additional expense to the department.
The increased attention given to mineral resources has been a matter of
gradual growth. Mr. King early organized a Division of Mining Geology
with Messrs. Pumpelly, Emmons, and Becker as geologists in charge, to
whom were assigned the collection of mineral statistics for the Tenth
Census. These Survey geologists and Director King himself held
appointments as special agents of the Census Bureau, and on the staff
selected for this work appear the names of T. B. Brooks, Edward Orton,
T. C. Chamberlin, Eugene A. Smith, George Little, J. R. Proctor, R. D.
Irving, N. S. Shaler, John Hays Hammond, Bailey Willis, and G. H.
Eldridge, indicating the extent to which the supervision of these
inquiries was placed in the hands of economic geologists. This procedure
was reverted to by Director Walcott and in the last ten years has become
a well-established policy, the statistics of annual production of all
the important mineral products being under the charge of geologists, as
best qualified to comprehend the resources of the country. Another of
these special assistants in 1880 was Albert Williams, Jr., who became
the first chief of the Division of Mineral Resources, in 1882. The study
of ore deposits, which may be said to have begun with the King Survey,
was inspired by King’s own appreciation of the broad geologic relations
of the distribution of mineral wealth and by the detailed studies of
individual mining districts by his associates, “based upon facts
accurately determined in the light of modern geology.”
Geological surveys have been prosecuted in Alaska since 1895, and in the
last few years the annual appropriation for the work has been the same
as that made for the expenses of the whole Survey in the first year of
its history. The Division of Alaskan Mineral Resources is in fact a
geological survey in itself, except that it shares in the administrative
machinery of the larger organization and has the advantage of the
cooperation of the scientific specialists of the Survey as they may be
needed to supplement its own force. All the investigations in this
distant part of the country represent the Geological Survey at its best,
for here the organization’s long experience in the Western States can be
applied to most effective and helpful work on the frontier, where the
geologist and topographer in their exploration do not always follow the
prospector but often precede him. Undoubtedly no greater factor has
contributed to the development of Alaskan resources than this pioneer
work of the Federal Survey, yet the work has also contributed notable
additions to the sciences of geology and geography.
The first duty laid upon the Director of the Geological Survey in the
law of 1879 was “the classification of the public lands,” and this
phrase undoubtedly expressed the idea of the committee of the National
Academy. The same legislation, however, contained provision for the
further consideration by a commission of the classification and
valuation of the public lands, as also recommended by the National
Academy. Thus the decision of Director King that the classification
intended by Congress was scientific and was intended for general
information and not to aid the Land Office in the disposition of land by
sale or otherwise was really based upon the deliberate opinion of the
Public Lands Commission, of which he was a member, that classification
would seriously impede rapid settlement of the unoccupied lands. Nearly
forty years later those who are intrusted with the land-classification
work of the Geological Survey recognize this familiar argument, which
undoubtedly had much more force in that earlier stage of the utilization
of the Nation’s resources of land.[106] The conception of land
classification as a business policy on the part of the Government as a
landed proprietor belongs rather to this day of more intensive
development. At present current public-land legislation calls for
highest use, and hence official investigation of natural values and
possibilities must precede disposition. This type of mineral and
hydrographic classification of public lands has been in progress in
increasing amount since 1906, so that now the Geological Survey is the
kind of scientific adviser to the Secretary of the Interior and
Commissioner of the General Land Office that may have been contemplated
by the National Academy of Sciences in 1878. It is plain, however, to
everyone at all conversant with Western conditions that the recent
land-classification surveys in Wyoming, for instance—detailed geologic
surveys which form the basis for the valuation of public coal lands in
40–acre units—would have possessed no utility in 1871, when the
coal-land law was passed but when the demand for railroad fuel had just
begun.
The land-classification idea is of course the basis of the National
forest and irrigation movements. The laws of 1888 and 1896, which mark
the beginning of active endorsement by Congress of these conservation
movements, placed upon the Survey the duties of examining reservoir
sites and forest reserves respectively. The earlier of these laws began
the investigation of the water resources of the country, which is still
an important phase of the Survey’s activity, and led to the creation of
an independent organization—the Reclamation Service. It is easy to trace
the beginnings of Federal reclamation of arid lands in the pioneer work
of Powell, whose report in 1878 on the arid region of the United States
was the first adequate statement of the problem of largest use of these
lands in terms broader than those of individualistic endeavor. For
years, however, Powell’s appeal for Congressional consideration of this
National task was like the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
In a somewhat similar way the forestry surveys under the Geological
Survey helped in the organization of a separate bureau—now the Forest
Service. The other important Federal bureau tracing direct relationship
to the Survey is the Bureau of Mines, established in 1910, which
continued the investigations in mining technology specifically provided
for by Congress for six years under the Geological Survey but in some
degree begun in the early days of the Survey under Directors King and
Powell.
Another equally important organization of a public nature, though not a
Federal bureau, traces its beginnings to the Geological Survey: the
Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, which now exercises
so potent an influence over geologic investigation, had its origin in
the official work of the Geological Survey’s Division of Chemical and
Physical Research, and its personnel was at first largely recruited from
the Survey. The highly original experimental work of this laboratory has
extended far beyond the scope of the Survey’s work—at least far beyond
the scope possible with the Federal funds available—yet most of the
results of these investigations may eventually come under even a strict
construction of the language used in the Survey’s appropriation “for
chemical and physical researches relating to the geology of the United
States.”
The topographic work of the present Survey continues with constant
refinement of standards and economy of methods the work of the earlier
organizations. The primary purpose of these topographic surveys is to
provide the bases for geologic maps, yet these topographic maps, which
cover 40 per cent of the area of the United States, are used in every
type of civil engineering as well as by the public generally. The annual
distribution by sale of half a million of these maps is an index of
their value to the people.
The hot discussion that was waged for years on the question of military
versus scientific administration of topographic surveys is in striking
contrast with the present concentration of all the topographic mapping
under the Geological Survey in those areas where it may best serve the
needs of the Army. In 1916 Congress specifically recognized the
possibility of greater cooperation of this kind, both in the
appropriation made to the Geological Survey and in a special
appropriation made to the War Department. For a number of years indeed
special military information had been contributed to the Army by the
Survey topographers, but since March 26, 1917, every Geological Survey
topographer has worked exclusively on the program of military surveys
laid down by the General Staff of the Army, and the places of some of
the 44 Survey topographers now in France as engineer officers are filled
by 34 other reserve engineer officers detailed by order of the Secretary
of War to the Director of the Geological Survey to assist in this
military mapping and to receive instruction fitting them in turn for
topographic service in France.
The contribution of this civilian service to the military operations in
the present emergency forms a fitting conclusion to this review of a
century of Government surveys. At present 215 members of the Geological
Survey are in uniform, 107 as engineer officers, two of whom are on the
staff of the American Commanding General in France. In the war work
carried on in the United States the Survey’s contribution is by no means
limited to military mapping: the geologists are also mobilized for
meeting war needs, assisting in developing new sources of the essential
war minerals, in speeding up production of mineral products, in
collecting information for the purchasing officers both of our own and
of the Allied governments, in coöperating with the constructing
quarter-masters in the location of gravel and sand for structural use
and in both general and special examinations of underground water supply
and of drainage possibilities at cantonment sites, and in supplying the
Navy Department with similar technical data. A special contribution has
been the application to aërial surveys of photogrammetric methods
developed in the Alaskan topographic work and the perfection of a camera
specially adapted to airplane use. The utilization of the Survey’s map
engraving and printing plant for confidential and urgent work for both
the Army and Navy has necessitated postponement of current work for the
Geological Survey itself. Throughout the organization the records, the
methods, and the personnel which represent the product of many years of
scientific activity are all being utilized; thus is the experience of
the past translated into special service in the present crisis.
_Notes._
Footnote 96:
Hess, R. H., Foundations of National Prosperity, p. 100.
Footnote 97:
Report Nat’l Museum, 1904, pp. 189–733.
Footnote 98:
Featherstonhaugh, J. D., Am. Geol., 3, 220, 1889.
Footnote 99:
Whitney, Mineral Wealth of the United States, pp. 248–250.
Footnote 100:
Foster and Whitney, 31st Cong., 1st session, House Doc. 69, pp. 13–14,
1850.
Footnote 101:
First Annual Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, p. 4.
Footnote 102:
Wheeler, Report 3d Internat’l Geog. Cong., p. 492, 1885.
Footnote 103:
The views of the writer on “natural monopolies” in the Government
service are set forth in an address delivered at the centennial
celebration of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, April 5, 1916.
(See Science, vol. 43, pp. 659–665, May 12, 1916.)
Footnote 104:
For correspondence on this subject, see Minnesota Geol. Survey, Eighth
Ann. Rept., 1880, p. 173.
Footnote 105:
Owen, D. D., 30th Cong., 1st sess., Senate Doc. No. 57, p. 7, 1848.
Footnote 106:
This essential difference between present-day requirements and the
needs of earlier generations has been discussed by W. C. Mendenhall,
the geologist in charge of the Land Classification Board of the
Geological Survey: Proceedings 2d Pan-American Sci. Cong., 1915–16, 3,
761.
VI
ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY