A century of science in America

by Unknown

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.

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.