The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-23

The Director of the Geological Survey has completed his estimates for carrying on the work of the next fscal year. They call for the appra- priation of nearly two million dollars There will be number of recon1men n- dations for new work. but in the main next years activity win be con tinuation of the work of this year. One of the fhings Director Smith is hoping for is that Congress will re- store the annual appropriation for river investigations to $300000 Last year Congress could not see that this work was of great importance. and cut the appropriation down to S200.00O In doing so 1t showed only that ignor- ance of the importance of the work which seems to be widespread.
 One may wonder of what practical use such studies can be. but hund- red activities depend on them. The government is spending over $4o. o.0e0.eo0 on irrigation projects. and is expecting to get three times as much in national wealth. yet the water-resource investigations made by the Survey are absolutely essential to successful irrigation work It Is as important that the irrigationist know the waterfiow on which ha basis his project. as t-is that. the architect shall know the foundations upon
 
 river and harbor improvement pro- gram can be carried out successfully without datea as to silt deposits. and other no less important things Con- gress insists upon knowing these things before 1t makes the necessary appropriations: and yet it handicaps the agency it has authorized to gather the Information. The Survey has been making these investigations for fifteen years.
 Records of the daily flow of steams have been collected at 1900 points throughout the United States. and during the past year stations have been maintained at 500 places. Studies have been made of their mean How. their flood stages. the tow water marks. and all essential data has been gathered, which serves. alike the de- velopers of power, the irrigationists, the swamp drainexS, and the deep waterway diggers. The Survey fs often severely put to in its efforts to and many unusual ccntrIvances must be devised to measure the depth and velocity of water at given points in its bed
 The activities of the Geological Survey show results in many unex- pected place. One would hardly look for effects of its work in the mone-
 
 has recently developed Into an fD1- portant factor in maintaining a stable gold market. Fiscal experts say thar a small but steady supply of gold makes more for national prosperity than q large irregular supply The such a regular supply. It is on the Seward Peninsula. Alaslxa. and yields about seven million dollars worth of gold every year--enough Go pay the entire purchase price Uncle Sam paid for the territory.
 The Survey has but little more than begun its investigation la Alaska, and it's reports constitute the major DOT ton of what we know about our northern possession. Bat this is enough to show that 1t was the biggest bargain a nation ever made. if we except the great Louisiana Pur- chase The minerals already dis- covered there by the Survey are worth a hundred times as much as Uncle Sam paid for theterritory. If Russia had known one-tenth of what the Geological Survey has learned, about Alaska, 1t might yet be Hussian terri tory. Just now. when the American people are witnessing the beginning Of the end of the American coal supply. it comes as grateful news that Alaska has vast areas of garnered heat within It's boundariehs.
 The government owns some 70s00O,- 900 acres of coal land in the western states and territories. Before the Geological Survey had investigated the deposits of these lands they were selling at less than twenty-fiv dollars an acre. Since the gathering of data by the Survey these lands have en- practical mining geologists whose in- i've dollars an acre. This data is not gathered by stiff -shirted gentlemen and long-haircd professors sitting in comfortable Washington offices. but by practical mining geolagists. whose in- v9Btigati0ns are recognised by the en- tire mining world. Through them Uncle Sam becomes the biggest and the most successful prospector' in the worldaT1e does not do it with the ''di- vinins roads' of the water witches of a passing generation in tn turns the powerful x-rays of mining and geologic science upon the ground and sees beneath its surface things hidden from the layman's vision. Uncle Sam, prOspeetor, is not a miner. He gives the mining profits to his people.
 Not only is the Geological Survey a prospector and a gatherer of im- portant information from the mineral world. but it is an experimenter of first rank, a pioneer in solving con eervation questions. A notable in stance of this is the work ie is doing to foster the making of "griquettes." The cuim taken from coal mines is aiawys a menace around the mouth of a mine. It consists of coal dust and coal too fine for shippin. or for any vrates yet devised. No one knows when a big pile of 1t will catch ire