Twenty-eighth annual report of the Director of the United States Geological Survey

Abstract

The plan of operations for the last fiscal year, including an itemized statement of the appropriations, amounting to $1,758,720, with the allotments thereof, was approved by the Secretary of the Interior on July 10, 1906. The work of the various branches and divisions conformed to this plan, and a detailed statement of their operations may be found on later pages. On January 23 the former Director, Charles D. Walcott, was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and his resignation as Director was accepted by the President, becoming effective April 30, 1907. Mr. Walcott has been a member of the Survey since its organization, and the thirteen years of his service as the administrative head of the bureau cover the period of its greatest growth. At the beginning of his directorship Mr. Walcott disclaimed any desire to make radical changes in either the policy or the administration of the Survey as developed under his predecessors, King and Powell, but in his first report, the Director's sixteenth, he mentioned certain readjustments which he deemed desirable in order that the Survey might better meet the economic and educational needs of the country. It is noteworthy that, almost without exception, these improvements have been accomplished, and even more fully than as then outlined. Among these changes may be mentioned : The raising of the standard of the topographic maps, with the representation thereon of land subdivision lines, and the extension of exact leveling and primary triangulation; the placing of the entire topographic and geologic force within the classified service; the obtaining of authority from Congress to issue separates of the annual report in pamphlet form, thus permitting advance publication of chapters of the Mineral Resources report, as well as of papers on economic geology; the enlargement of the work of the divisions of hydrography, mineral resources, and geology, in the last case providing for reconnaissance surveys of regions of economic importance. Equally notable was the growth of the Survey under Mr. Walcott's administration, as shown by the increase in both the extent and the scope of its operations. The appropriations for the last fiscal year amounted to more than four times the total of those made thirteen years ago, and there was, of course, a corresponding increase in the amount of field and office work performed. The development of the relations between the Geological Survey and the public within the same period is measured by a more than fourfold increase in amount of official correspondence, nearly fourfold increase in number of printed pages in the various reports of the year, and a more than fivefold increase in copies of maps printed, while the total annual distribution of publications, books, and maps grew from less than 200,000 to nearly a million copies, the sales increasing from $2,100 to over $18,000. The extent to which the results of the work by this organization are now utilized by both the industrial world and the educational and scientific institutions furnishes the best index of the degree of success attained by Mr. Walcott and his colleagues.