The commissioner submits a series of 29 recommendations for better work and greater usefulness on the part of the bureau. He urges that its staff be greatly increased and made more than proproportionally effective by the addition of an assistant commissioner, a private secretary to the commissioner, an assistant editor, a specialist and assistants in foreign educational systems, two collectors and compilers of statistics, additional specialists in higher education, rural and industrial education, commercial education, school hygiene, city school administration, community organization, and a greatly increased staff of stenographers and clerks. He asks that the statutory salaries of several members of the present staff be increased, and that the limitations on the salaries paid from lump-sum appropriations be removed.

To the present organization of the bureau the commissioner would add the following listed divisions:

1. For the study of exceptional children, both subnormal and supernormal, and the best methods of educating them.

2. For scientific experiments in methods of education.

3. For the study and eradication of adult illiteracy.

4. For Americanization work among the foreign-born population of the United States.

5. For the study of and help in the home education of children. 6. For educational extension work.

7. For a school board service to assist school boards in securing high-grade teachers.

8. For the study and establishment of model rural schools. He asks for the reestablishment of the Division of Negro Education and Backward Peoples with an annual appropriation of 25,000. For medical and relief work in Alaska and for the education of the Alaskan natives he desires appropriations, respectively, of $125,000 and $300,000. To these Alaskan activities he would add the work of assisting the natives to develop and establish their own remunerative industries.

Finally, the commissioner points out the very great need of a Federal educational building in which may be housed the bureau and the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

Nature of the work of the year.—During the first half of the fiscal year practically all the energies of the Geological Survey were concentrated on war work. A census of the country's resources of manganese, chromite, tungsten, and quicksilver and of oil, gas, and coal was made, field work was done to discover new deposits, and maps and data showing the distribution of the mineral deposits in foreign countries, their quality and extent, the output of districts

and regions, and the trade distribution of minerals in the world's commerce were prepared. These maps proved so valuable to all the agencies that used them that it has been decided not only to make them public but to continue and keep up to date the compilation of like data for the benefit of American industry and commerce.

The work of the last half of the year has consisted largely of the completion of the field projects undertaken and the orderly summation and conservation of the military and economic results. Classified estimates of the country's mineral reserves have been completed and made available for future use in war or in peace, sampling of minerals and estimates of quantities available have been followed by contributions to our knowledge of the mode of origin of ores or minerals, and the special military inquiries as to underground water, road-building materials, rare minerals, and other subjects examined have led to broader views and better methods of work. Some of the war work-for. example, the preparation of frequent reports showing the rate of production and transportation of coal-has been carried along, to the advantage of both the producer and the consumer. The appropriations for the work of the survey for the fiscal year 1919 amounted to $1,437,745.50. The roll of members holding appointments from the Secretary at the end of the fiscal year numbered 967, a decrease of 33.

Geologic surveys.-The geologists of the survey were engaged during the year in finding, examining, and studying deposits of manganese, chromite, tungsten, zirconium, molybdenum, iron, salt, highcalcium lime, white clays, nitrates, potash, and sulphur, chiefly for the purpose of supplying military needs. A wall map showing the deposits of manganese ore in the United States classified as to types was prepared. Military maps of the country around several camps and training stations, with accompanying descriptions, were prepared and printed; data were gathered for the use of the staff of the Chief of Field Artillery in selecting sites for artillery ranges and cantonments; information was compiled on road-building material and on water supplies for the use of the Chief of Engineers in connection with the preparation of the progressive military map of the country, and information was compiled concerning the mineral deposits and production of other countries. Cooperation was arranged and put into effect with several States, universities, and councils of defense; special statements and summaries were prepared for the War Industries, Shipping, and War Trade Boards, and the information that was of greatest immediate need to the public was promptly published through newspapers and technical magazines. Since the armistice was signed illustrated reports on the economic geology of the many deposits studied have been in prepara

tion or are already published, and data have been compiled for the information of the War Minerals Relief Commission.

Cooperation with the Fuel Administration was continued, and commercial data on coal were mapped and filed so as to be readily available for the use of the Fuel Administration and other branches of the Government. The consideration of questions relating to the pooling and zoning of coal led to the preparation of a detailed and comprehensive scheme of classification of coals.

The search for new reserves of petroleum to supply war demands was continued.

The most important cooperative investigations were made with the Bureau of Mines and the War and Navy Departments in the search for helium-rich natural gas; with the Capital Issues Committee of the Treasury Department in examinations and reports on applications for capitalization; and with the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the compilation of the records of production of oil and gas fields, the calculation of the rates of depletion, and the formulation of rules to govern the application of income-tax laws to the depletion of oil and gas field properties.

The geologists of the survey cooperated in military and commercial investigations with the Ordnance, Aviation, and other branches of the War and Navy Departments, with the War Trade Board, the War Industries Board, the Fuel Administration, the Food Administration, the Capital Issues Committee, the Bureau of Internal Revenue of the Treasury Department, the Tariff Commission, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Standards, the State Department, the Shipping Board, the Railroad Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the Forest Service, and the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. In scientific investigations they cooperated informally with the Smithsonian Institution, the Bureau of Lighthouses, the Bureau of Fisheries, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the research laboratories of the Smithsonian Institution. Investigations have been undertaken or planned at the request of the Governments of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Virgin Islands, and Porto Rico, and assistance has been given to the geological departments of a number of colleges and universities.

The special investigations made for the military departments and branches of the Government included search for material for smudges, for porous rocks to be used in making more buoyant concrete ships, and for underground water for many cantonments and military and naval training stations, examination of target ranges, determination of locations for military storage places, examination and estimate of resources of natural gas, and investigations of resources of nitrate and potash both at home and abroad.

The restriction by an allied country of the exportation to America of high-grade clays near the end of the war led to an investigation in the eastern part of the United States of deposits of high-grade clays that might be used in making paper or in the manufacture of porcelain or of articles used in electrical equipment. A report on the investigation has been written for publication.

Studies were made of the geology and paleontology of the Canal Zone under an agreement between the Panama Canal Commission, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Geological Survey.

Geologic work was done in Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands with special reference to the ground water supply.

Certain reported deposits of chromite in the Dominican Republic were examined to determine whether the deposits were available for the military use of the United States.

Cooperative work on deposits of chromite and manganese in Cuba was done, and arrangements were made to render assistance to the Cuban Government in petrographic and paleontologic work.

The laboratory work included about 1,500 analyses and assays, among them more than 100 tests of rocks for platinum, a metal much needed for military use. Special determinations of the potash content of certain rocks were made.

Surveys in Alaska.-As most of the topographers and several of the geologists of the survey who had been working in Alaska either entered the Army or were assigned to work to be done in connection with the prosecution of the war it was not possible to continue the survey's work in Alaska in the customary way. The work done consisted principally of investigations of deposits of chromite and tin, surveys and examinations in the region that is being developed by the Government railroads, measurements of stream flow, and the usual census of the mineral production of the Territory.

Ten parties were engaged during 1918 in Alaska surveys and investigations. Eight of the parties were engaged in geologic surveys, one in topographic surveys, and one in stream gauging. The areas covered by reconnoissance geologic surveys on a scale of 1:250,000 (4 miles to an inch) amount to 3,500 square miles. Much of the time of the geologists was devoted to the investigation of special problems relating to the occurrence of economic minerals, the results of which can not be expressed in terms of area. About 1,200 square miles was covered by reconnoissance topographic surveys on a scale of 1:250,000 (4 miles to an inch). In cooperation with the Forest Service, stream gauging was continued in southeastern Alaska. Of the parties whose work may be classified geographically, three parties worked in southeastern Alaska, three in the Cook Inlet-Susitna region, one in the Yukon Basin, and two in Seward Peninsula.

Field work for the season of 1919 was begun before the end of the fiscal year by three parties.

The survey's branch office at Anchorage was maintained throughout the year to provide closer cooperation between the Geological Survey and the operators of the Government coal mines in the Mata-nuska Valley, as well as to aid the mining industry in the region tributary to the Government railroad, to keep in touch with local developments in mining and prospecting, and to furnish whatever aid may be rendered by giving information, advice, and publications to all who are engaged in mining and prospecting.

Statistics of mineral production.-Work in mineral statistics wast carried on mainly for military purposes during the first half of the fiscal year.

Weekly statistics of the production of copper, lead, zinc, and aluminum were collected and were furnished to the Government purchasing agencies, a system of monthly reports covering the raw mineral materials that were of chief use in the war was established, and diagrams and tables showing not only the supplies available but the estimated requirements were prepared by the Geological Survey in cooperation with the War Industries Board and the mineral specialists of the Shipping Board. By contributions of geologic and statistical information and by the judgments of its trained specialists. the Geological Survey aided the Capital Issues Committee in directing capital into those fields where it would be of maximum usefulness during the war.

During the year the survey contributed reports on mercury, graphite, phosphate rock, manganese, antimony, tungsten, magnesite, emery, corundum, bauxite and aluminum, and platinum to a series of mimeographed pamphlets issued by the Interior Department under the direction of the Bureau of Mines, showing the political and commercial control of these commodities throughout the world. Specialists of the survey also prepared chapters on mineral commodities and on economic conditions in Japan and Sweden for reports compiled by the Bureau of Research of the War Trade Board.

A voluminous index of the information on mineral resources in the possession of several Government organizations was compiled and was published in mimeographed form through the cooperation of the Central Bureau of Planning and Statistics.

The cooperation between the survey and the Fuel Administration in the collection of statistics of the coal and coke industries, begun in 1917, was continued throughout the year. Most of the details of this information will be published by the Fuel Administration, but summaries of the more essential data will be incorporated in the survey's volumes on the mineral resources of the United States.