Mr. TARVER. I notice on this map of Georgia, which is my own State, that you propose the reinstallation of the station at Greensboro, which seems to be only a few miles away from the one at Washington and the one at Warrenton. I direct your attention to the northwestern section of the State, comprising all of my congressional district, and the major portion of the Ninth Congressional District, in which there is located only one station, the one at Rome.

You have undertaken to establish a new station in an area already thickly populated with stations, and it occurs to me that consideration might be given to the establishment of such a station in an area which apparently has been neglected.

Mr. GREGG. The location of stations is dependent in large part on our actual experience of several years in rendering the service, and in many cases is based on the climatic characteristics of the regions concerned. In some regions, for example, the climatic conditions are so similar for a large area that one station gives a very good representation of that area, whereas in others, owing to differences in topography and other conditions, it is necessary to have a fairly dense network of stations.

Mr. TARVER. That is a theory, however, which I think would not have any basis if applied to this particular region to which I am refer

I know of no differences in climatic conditions or topography that would justify the maintenance of so many stations in the area just south of Athens, Ga., or the absence of any stations with the one exception in the tremendous area northwest of Atlanta, as shown on the map.

Mr. GREGG. Well, of course, if you will carry that point of view farther, you will see that north of this region there are very few stations, and that is probably owing to the fact that there is not as much activity in the actual growing of cotton in that section.

Mr. TARVER. That is unquestionably true as to the eastern portion of Tennessee, where there is very little cotton, but the western portion of Tennessee seems to have been fairly well provided for, but that is not true as to my district.

Mr. GREGG. That is a matter that we shall be glad to take up with the section director of the State at Atlanta.

Mr. TARVER. I was just wondering on what basis these new stations are proposed to be installed, whether it is because some Congressman has written in and urged the establishment of a station at a given point or the reestablishment of a station that has heretofore been abandoned, or whether it is an action based upon a recommendation made by your Bureau of its own volition without its having been suggested by a Congressman.

Mr. GREGG. In the cases of all of these stations, I may say that it is based on the recommendations of our own officials.

Mr. TARVER. Take this Greensboro station, for example. Did the officials, without any suggestion from a Congressman, investigate the atter and decide that the Greensboro station should be established, or did this proposed establishment result from an investigation initiated by the Congressman from that district, we will say?

Mr. GREGG. I feel sure it was based only one the judgment of our own officials; certainly that is true in a large majority of cases. We had a conference of all of the section directors of those cottonFowing stations at New Orleans last spring, a conference which I tended and presided over, and as a result of that conference recom

mendations were submitted by the various section directors, including the one at Atlanta, for additional stations, a limited number of them, and that was one of the stations that he proposed in the light of the experience that he had had during the past 2 or 3 years.

RIVER AND FLOOD SERVICE

Mr. TARVER. Proceed, Mr. Gregg.

Mr. GREGG. The next item is for $25,000, and is for the purpose of strengthening the project which is entitled "River and flood service." In connection with that, I may say that the development of large engineering, irrigation, and other projects has brought very urgently before us the need of improving that service in certain parts of the country. Some of the smaller river basins do not have any service whatsoever now, and others are incomplete.

I may give as examples that the Potomac itself has only a skeletonized service and should be filled in materially. While floods do not occur in Washington often, when they do, as in 1889 and 1924, they are very severe.

Then, the Rappanhannock River in Virginia, the Edisto in South Carolina, the Yadkin in North Carolina, and the Suwannee in Florida, have no service whatsoever.

Mr. TARVER. Some of these rivers, when you look at them, appear to be no more than a creek.

Mr. GREGG. True, but when floods do occur, they are extremely disastrous, and the amount devoted to those rivers would be very small in each case, but, nevertheless, it is essential to guard against the occasions when flood conditions do develop.

Then too, the Republican, of Nebraska and Kansas, is not covered to the necessary extent. You will recall that a severe flood occurred there last year.

Mr. THURSTON. If they changed the name of that stream, would that help it any? [Laughter.]

Mr. GREGG. I would rather leave that to someone other than a meteorologist.

Mr. TARVER. Since it became so destructive in its conduct, they have decided to let its name remain as it is. [Laughter.]

Mr. GREGG. There is a very urgent need for strengthening the service in the Missouri and Columbia Rivers particularly. The service on the Missouri was reasonably adequate until the construction of the Fort Peck Dam. Since then it is essential to have a number of stations in North Dakota and in the States to the south thereof in order to give adequate information on which to base action by the engineers in releasing the water from the dam for the lower parts of the river in order to provide navigation.

In the Columbia River service was reasonably complete until the work of construction on the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams was started. Now that that work is in progress it is found that day by day forecasts of river stages are in no sense adequate to meet the needs of the engineers and others who are engaged in these projects.

COST OF RIVER AND RAINFALL OBSERVATION STATIONS

Mr. THURSTON. I do not want to divert you, but could you tell the committee just offhand what the average annual cost of one of these river stations is?

Mr. GREGG. The observations are made once each day as a rule by local observers, and the compensation given averages about 25 cents an observation. Then, of course, there is the cost of telephoning or telegraphing the observations.

Mr. THURSTON. In the aggregate, about what does that amount to per station?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. Richards tells me it is about $85 per station— that is, for the substations.

SNOWFALL AND EVAPORATION WORK

Then a part of this $25,000 would be used in extending the snowfall work and the evaporation project, both of which are intimately related, of course, to the water supply.

Mr. THURSTON. These are highly technical, but are they absolutely practical or of real value?

Mr. GREGG. Highly practical, yes. The measurements of snow, for example, usually made on the 31st of March at a large number of places throughout the mountainous districts, form the basis on which forecasts are made of the water supply for the following season, and that is useful both in connection with irrigation projects and in connection with other engineering projects of various sorts.

Mr. THURSTON. I can understand that it might be scientifically valuable to have this rather exact information from all over the country, but I was just wondering if it is of real practical value.

Mr. GREGG. Yes, there is no question at all but that it is. In fact, in this case the scientific value of the data is secondary to the practical application of the data in making forecasts of the water supply for large sections, same of the cities and towns in California, for example, but more particularly, I would say, for the irrigation projects.

Mr. THURSTON. It seems that there are so many branches of the Government that are so minute in their research that it becomes top-heavy. You know, a Congressman in his office might have such a complicated system of filing and of cross-indexing that it would be a very fine thing but it would take so much of the time of the help in following out that intricate system that there would not be any time left for the practical things to do in the office. I am wondering if sometimes these governmental offices do not become top-heavy with their detailed investigations and bring information that is of little practical value.

Mr. GREGG. I think that that is not true so far as the Weather Bureau is concerned. We feel on the other hand that we have not engaged in fundamental research to the extent that we should in order to realize fully the practical application of it, and I may say also that all of our research work has that one end in view, and nothing else.

FOREST-FIRE WEATHER SERVICE

Mr. TARVER. Will you proceed to the next item now?

Mr. GREGG. The forest-fire weather service is carried on in cooperation with the Forest Service but is of a very skeletonized character. It has not been possible to organize it in detail except in a very limited way, in one of the seven fire-weather districts, namely, in the northern part of California. There it has been possible to detail our

forecaster to the field at times when large fires threaten, or when they are actually in existence. In doing so, our forecaster receives a large number of reports, principally from lookout stations operated by the Forest Service, but also supplemented by our own reports from stations that we establish, including the network of reports from the airway meteorological service. In other words, use is made of every possible piece of information, and forecasts are made as to the likelihood of very dry, hot conditions, and of unfavorable wind movements. In the case of a fire already in existence, forecasts are given the areas which are most threatened owing to the likelihood of unfavorable winds, and in the case of fires that have not yet developed, the fire-fighting forces are told of the areas where conditions are favorable for the inception and spread of fires, and they are able thus to concentrate their forces on those areas.

I should like to read into the record in this connection, a resolution that was passed by the Western Forestry and Conservation Association at its recent meeting in Portland, Oreg. It reads as follows:

The forests of the Western States, on which a large percent of their population depends for a livelihood, are subject to heavy losses from forest fires, the spread of which is more affected by weather conditions than by any other natural factor, making regular localized fire weather forecasts and warnings highly essential to private, State, and Federal agencies if they are to take all necessary preventive measures against fire losses and effect adequate, safe, and economical slash disposal measures: Therefore, be it

Resolved, That we commend the fire weather forecasting work now done by the fire-weather service of the United States Weather Bureau with its limited resources, and strongly urge upon Congress the appropriation of increased funds sufficient to provide the forested regions of our Western States with a more completely localized fire-weather forecasting service by the Weather Bureau.

TOTAL INCREASE FOR WEATHER BUREAU

Mr. TARVER. How much of an increase for your entire Bureau are you seeking this time? It seems to me that in your Aerology Division alone the increase is approximately 25 percent.

Mr. GREGG. The largest increase is in aerology; yes. The total increase for the entire service is $470,620.

Mr. TARVER. Just how are we going to balance the Budget if, instead of decreasing appropriations, we continue to increase them from year to year? These various activities of your Bureau that you are talking about are no doubt worthy, but we have been getting along without them and we have no additional source of income to carry on additional activities of this kind. Why not wait until the country gets out of the financial hole that it is in now?

FUNDS FOR AEROLOGICAL WORK

Mr. GREGG. We feel that these slight increases are not only worthy as a matter of fact, but crucially necessary at this time.

In connection with your reference to aerology, it may be pointed out that we have greatly reduced that service in recent years, notwithstanding that flying operations have increased enormously. The airway mileage in the past 2 years has increased 28 percent, for example, and the actual number of miles flown in scheduled flights is about 50 percent more than it was 3 years ago.

Mr. THURSTON. But your increase in aerology from 1928 to this year would be 600 percent.

Mr. GREGG. Since 1928?

Mr. THURSTON. Yes. You were getting $241,500 in 1928, but now it is $1,544,389, or six times as much as you had 8 years ago.

Mr. GREGG. That, of course, was near the beginning of the whole development, which actually begin in 1927. At that time there was very little flying, nothing but one transcontinental airway and three or four feeders.

Mr. THURSTON. Your total for the Weather Bureau in 1924 was $1,900,000, but this year you want $3,900,000, which is a 100 percent increase over about 10 years for your Bureau.

DEMAND FOR INCREASED SERVICE

Mr. GREGG. Yes; but, on the other hand, in 1932 the total appropriation was $4,500,000, and we feel that it was only barely sufficient to take care of the needs then existing.

In the meantime there has been a great increase in those needs, in aerology, in forest-fire weather service, in the river and flood service, and in the crop-weather service, as well as in the distribution of forecasts and warnings, and so forth; yet, notwithstanding that, our appropriation is very materially below what it was at that time.

Mr. THURSTON. But the difficulty that faces us is that every branch of the Government comes up here with the same story, which probably to some extent is true, but this committee really ought to have information as to which one of these proposed increases you can get along best without so that when the bill is written, if deductions are made, we will not deprive some practical, useful branch of the Government of funds that it needs and probably allow support to some less necessary branch.

As I say, that is the difficulty that this committee faces. Of course, we do not have the time or the training to make a survey of each branch, to know which part of it is the most essential, but every group that comes up here wants more money and insists that they ought to have it. As the chairman suggests, we must make a reduction in public expenditures, and yet every Government official who comes up wants a material increase, and so what we would like to know is just what are the most essential items.

Mr. GREGG. I am quite sympathetic with your point of view, I assure you, and I wish to point out that, as a matter of fact, we have included very little here for fundamental research as such. In fact, there is only one item that involves research, and that for a very small amount, about $3,000. All of the rest is for practical service along these various lines that I have endeavored to describe, and for which we feel the need is vital.

Mr. THURSTON. Apparently the chief of each bureau has concluded that if he does not come up here and ask for an increase, it is a reflection upon his service, because, with rare exceptions, every official comes up here asking for an increase; and, with the terrible situation that exists all over the country with regard to unemployment, it seem to me that we do not have the help that we should have from the executive branch of the Government in trying to hold down these expenses. Somewhere and somehow we ought to have the information as to which parts of the service are the most essential, so that we could

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