Perspectives THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY AT 100LEGACIES AND CHALLENGES 1879-CRISIS IN THE MINERAL INDUSTRY When the U.S. Geological Survey was founded in 1879, the United States had just completed its Reconstruction era and the Nation was recovering from a major economic depression following the financial panic of 1873. Within the next two decades, the once isolated, rural, and agrarian Nation was well on its way to becoming a world, urban, and industrial power. In this development, mineral resources played a vital role as the value of the Nation's mineral products tripled between 1880 and 1890. In 1879, two outstanding problems of practical importance faced the mineral industry, one involving the great industrial metal, iron, and the other, the precious metals gold and silver. The use of steel in construction had increased rapidly during the 1870's. Although the United States possessed large reserves of iron, steelmaking processes then commonly used required a low-phosphorous low-sulfur pig iron, and there was a shortage of ores of suitable composition to meet the growing demands of industry. The crisis in the production of precious metals and their use in currency involved complex political as well as business concerns. The Specie Resumption Act of 1875 provided for a return to the gold standard in 1879 by equating the "greenback" paper currency, first issued during the Civil War, with gold. The legislation also reduced by $82 million the amount of greenbacks in circulation as a response to Eastern requests for a sounder fiscal policy, rather than continuing the inflation of currency favored by agricultural interests in the South and West that sought cheaper money to repay debts and mortgages. Here, agricultural concerns merged with those of the mining industry in the West where new discoveries in the Comstock (Nevada) and other mining districts in 1876 had dramatically increased silver production. In response to political pressure for the free and unlimited coinage of silver, Congress passed the BlandAllison Act in February 1878 over the veto of President Rutherford B. Hayes. As the Act required Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman to buy from $2 million to $4 million in silver each month for coinage, 1878 was a year of great monetary uncertainty. On January 1, 1879, the Treasury Department resumed specie payments as required by the Act of 1875. Although Secretary Sherman confidently expected the Treasury's gold reserve of $200 million to cover any rush to convert paper to metallic currency, the amount of gold mined each year in the United States had been declining steadily through most of the decade as the production of silver steadily increased. Gold was the second major metallic ore in short supply in the United States. 1879-THE FEDERAL RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS The U.S. Geological Survey was founded, 2 months after specie payments resumed, on March 3, 1879, when President Hayes signed an appropriations bill that contained an item giving the Director of the Geological Survey responsibility for administering a new organization charged with the classification of the public lands and the examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. Congress established the Geological Survey to promote greater economy, efficiency, and utility in the conduct of geologic investigations by merging many of the functions of the three re maining Federal geological and geographical surveys of the Nation's territories in the West-organizations discontinued by the same legislation. More realistically, however, Representative Abram Hewitt of New York, one of the chief proponents of a national geological survey, had emphasized in the House debate on the bill that The need of a thorough survey for the wise organization and distribution of American industry is in the future as imperative as a constitution on which to found our laws. Founded as a bureau in the Department of the Interior, the Geological Survey joined the small number of Federal scientific and mapping agencies, both civilian and military, that had been established for practical purposes, although some of these organizations had extended their work into basic science. THE SURVEY'S TRADITION OF APPLIED SCIENCE Congress had authorized mineralresources surveys of specific areas in the United States as early as the 1830's. In establishing subsequent reconnaissances and the territorial surveys that preceded the U.S. Geological Survey, Congress demonstrated its recognition of the growing importance of these natural resources to the Nation's development. Clarence King, the Geological Survey's first Director (1879-81), responded to the intent of the legislation and the Nation's critical need for precious metals, iron, and coal by organizing the new agency's work to produce immediate information of practical value on mineral resources. In selecting his program, King established a unique role for the Geological Survey, one that ensured it Triangulation station at the summit of Garfield Peak, Rattlesnake Mountains, Natrona County, Wyo., circa 1913. (Photograph by C. J. Hares.) would be in competition with no other agency. His program also gained for the Survey a natural ally in the mineral industry, which, unlike agriculture, had a long and close relationship with science. The mineral industry, at least in the Eastern United States, had come so to appreciate the value of scientifically based exploration and development that the American Institute of Mining Engineers was established in 1871 because, as one of its first members observed, scientists were as essential to the industry's success as the furnaces and labor that ran it. King's program responded to the Nation's needs for information on its mineral resources. With his personal participation, the Survey gathered statistics on nationwide mineral production and geological, geographical, and chemical data and analyses of mineral deposits in cooperation with the Tenth Census of 1880. Some of the Survey's foremost geologists conducted geological and technical studies of silver mining districts, especially the Comstock and Eureka in Nevada and Leadville in Colorado, and of the iron and copper ores of Michigan. With this work, King established two long-term principles that guided the Geological Survey's subsequent investigations in economic geology. First, research in mining geology was directed toward the immediate solution of specific problems, rather than the immediate advancement of basic science. Second, the field relations of ore deposits were examined systematically in their geologic context by accurate detailed mapping assisted by paleontological investigations and chemical and microscopical studies in the laboratory. These studies yielded information on why these mining districts had been eminently successful so that the practical data could be applied in exploration and development elsewhere. By the mid-1880's, the Geological Survey's report on the Leadville district had taught the entire mining industry the value of geology in developing a district, demonstrated the structural control of ore deposits, and contributed ideas on the origin and genetic classification of these resources. Studies of gold ores and districts in the Sierra Nevada and the I. C. Russell leading a U.S. Geological Survey party across the moraines of the Rocky Mountains by Survey scientists In the late 1890's, as the Geological practical problems and highlighted the advantages of directed research. When Congress failed to pass a bill for a Department or Bureau of Mines, Charles D. Walcott, the Survey's third Director (1894-1907), responded by organizing a Division of Mines and Mineral Resources within the Survey in 1900. Congress established a Bureau of Mines within the Department of the Interior in 1910, with a part of the Survey's Technologic Branch as the nucleus of the new agency. THE SURVEY'S In establishing his mission-oriented goals and program of applied investigations for the Geological Survey, Director King did not neglect basic research. He intended the Survey information on mineral resources to aid the formulation of a genetic classification of ores, based on the origin and relations of mineral deposits, and thus to assist the mining industry and foster an increased understanding of the Earth and its history. Several pioneering studies in geophysics and microscopic petrography, which were undertaken by the Geological Survey to support its mining geology program, eventually led to other advances in the earth sciences. By 1900, the petrographic microscope and new tools had familiarized geologists with quantitative measurement and stimulated demands for more exact methods of geologic investigation. Comprehending the mechanical, chemical, and thermal processes involved in the formation and distribution of ore deposits required the solution of problems of extraordinary difficulty. Work begun by the Geological Survey to analyze these processes led to the establishment in 1907 of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington for fundamental studies of the properties and origins of rocks. Deciphering the structural control of ore deposits led the Geological Survey to broad-scale regional interpretations to determine favorable structures and ultimately to interpretations of the geologic structure and history of the United States. Exploration required the development of new tools for the rapid evaluation of large areas. After World War I, the Geological Survey adopted aerial photography for mapping, first for planimetry, followed by topography, and then for geology. After World War II, geophysicists took to the air to delineate subsurface ore bodies and structures by their magnetic properties. These and other investigations involved the progressive use of newer and increasingly more complex technical methods of directly and indirectly acquiring data by vehicle, ship, aircraft, and then satellite-borne instruments. However, improved instrumentation and techniques of gathering data did not obscure the principal goal of investigations in geology, topography, water resources, and the regulation of mineral and energy resources on public lands. These investigations are still designed to secure as accurate and detailed an interpretation of the area analyzed as possible, within the time allotted for the work, and by whatever means the results are displayed. The economic and mission orientation of the Survey's work as planned by King was revised and expanded in scope by Walcott when he became Director in 1894. Under Walcott and succeeding Directors, the Survey's investigations aided not only the mineral industry but many other practical objectives that could be advanced by a greater knowledge of the Earth and its natural resources. Basic and applied geology, Walcott affirmed, could not be separated; the Survey would undertake basic research not so much for its own sake but to meet specific needs for knowledge to solve specific problems. In 1894, the Survey obtained an appropriation for gaging streams and determining the water supply of the United States and, later, funds for studies of water quality. Walcott indicated the importance of investigating the geologic aspects of water by assigning some of the Survey's most experienced geologists, including G. K. Gilbert, to waterresources studies. Mining the lode, Virginia City, Nev. (Photographer unknown.) Much of the Geological Survey's work during this time reflected the increasing emphasis on the utility of Federal science that marked the turn of the century. However, Walcott and subsequent Directors did not neglect basic research. Walter C. Mendenhall, the fifth Director (1931-43), who had been Chief Geologist, reemphasized the continuing need for basic studies by stressing that without science to apply there could be no applied science. During the Survey's first 100 years, results of basic research were often applied in different ways to solve new problems. Gilbert's studies of the shorelines of Quaternary lakes in the Western United States during the late 19th century, for example, were originally completed to aid regional mapping and interpretations of climates and environment in the geologically recent past in those areas. However, Gilbert's work later formed the basis for several early investigations in engineering geology. THE SURVEY'S SCIENCE In addition to the Geological Survey's long-standing commitment to applied and basic studies in the earth sciences, its work during the past 100 years has been marked by Placer mining Gibbonsville, Lemhi County, Idaho, circa 1899. (Photograph by Bailey Willis.) |