Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1894.djvu/31

Rh fore, to bring the statements of the census to the basis of fact, with proper explanations as to conditions and variations in comparative qualities, is a proper one and will meet the approval of all interested in census work.

The topographic work of the Geological Survey was continued during the year upon the general lines heretofore followed, surveys having been made in twenty-one States and Territories. Of the sum of $200,000 appropriated for topographic surveys, $130,000 was expended for work west of the ninety-seventh meridian, and $70,000 for work east of that line. Cooperative work with the State of New York was begun upon conditions similar to those made for joint State and National work in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, under which the topographic surveys of those States have already been completed.

The steady increase in the scale of the atlas sheets prepared by the Survey, necessitated by a growing demand for greater detail of mapping, has tended to reduce the area annually covered, but good progress was made during the year 1893-'94, 35,360 square miles having been surveyed.

A list of topographic atlas sheets surveyed to date forms a part of the annual report of the Director of the Survey, and shows, that of the 906 sheets already completed, 121 were finished during the year, besides 4 detailed large-scale maps of mining districts.

A small amount ($4,000) was expended in continuation of hydrographic work, chiefly in gauging streams and in the preparation of a preliminary map showing broadly in graphic form all data at present available concerning water supply. The requests made of the Survey for facts concerning the water resources of the country have shown, by their number and character, a popular appreciation of the work already completed and a need for information which it is as yet impossible to supply.

The geologic field work of the year was restricted almost entirely to surveys required in connection with the preparation of sheets of the geologic atlas of the United States. Special investigations were made of the bauxite deposits of Georgia and Alabama; of the coal seams of Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Montana; of the iron ores of North Carolina, Tenuessee, New Jersey, and Michigan; of a part of the corundum belt of North Carolina; of the phosphates of Florida and Tennessee; of an undeveloped petroleum field in Wyoming; of gold and silver in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and California; of fire clay in Colorado; of artesian water in Colorado and in the coastal belt from New Jersey to Virginia; of building stone, cement rock, brick clay, and other structural material in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Kansas.