utilities, the monthly consumption of coal, and the number of days' supply of bituminous and anthracite coal on hand at the current rate of consumption. The annual report contains revised figures of the monthly production of electricity and consumption of fuel in 1934 previously published in the monthly reports, a summary of the annual reports from 1919 to 1934, the average annual rate of consumption of coal and the coal equivalent of oil and gas in generating 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity from 1919 to 1934, and the annual exports and imports of electricity between the United States and Canada and Mexico for certain years. A report of the capacity of water wheels in the United States on January 1 was also prepared. The final report of the monthly and annual production of electricity for public use in 1934 was released April 20, 1935. The annual report of the capacity of water wheels in water-power plants in the United States was released January 24, 1935.

The division of water utilization investigates problems affecting the utilization and control of the waters of streams and performs administrative work relating to supervision and investigation of these problems by the field organization of the water-resources branch and of power projects of the Federal Power Commission and of the Interior Department. The field work is generally conducted by personnel otherwise assigned to the division of surface water. In collaboration with the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration studies were made of floods in the United States, with especial reference to their magnitude and frequency, and of the relations of rainfall and run-off in the United States. A report on the flood study was completed and sent to the printer, and a report on the rainfall and run-off study was practically completed by the end of the year.

CONSERVATION BRANCH

The regular work of the conservation branch was retarded during the fiscal year 1935 by insufficient funds and personnel. Office phases of the work were maintained reasonably current until March, when congestion developed in consequence of the receipt for technical consideration of a large number of proposed unit plans of development and operation, submitted by Federal oil and gas permittees in compliance with departmental requirements. This congestion increased steadily thereafter and attained serious proportions before the end of the year. Field phases of branch work were necessarily neglected in all lines except power classification and agricultural classification, where funds from extra-branch sources made possible the conduct of several needed surveys. Geologic

work was possible in only two small areas, and field inspection of mines and of oil and gas operations, already far in arrears, was further attenuated by the necessary detail of supervisory personnel to Public Works projects and by an abnormal increase in new properties and new operations to be supervised.

By departmental order 884, effective March 21, 1935, the work of agricultural and grazing classification was transferred to the departmental Division of Grazing, and the office and field personnel of the branch engaged in that work was detailed to that division for the remainder of the year.

MINERAL-CLASSIFICATION DIVISION

The work of the mineral-classification division was restricted rather closely to office phases and was materially impeded by the negligible inflow of basic data from the field. The trend of division activity from strict classification to phases concerned with administration of the mineral leasing law was accentuated by the assignment to the division of the responsibility for determining the areas subject to logical unitization under plans for unit or cooperative development submitted by the holders of Federal oil and gas prospecting permits. Appreciable progress was made, nevertheless, in classifying the vast areas of public land withdrawn early in the century for examination and classification as to mineral. Classifications effected include 224,444 acres as coal land, 661,091 acres as noncoal land, 19,211 acres as oil-shale land, and 248,473 acres as non-oil-shale land.

In addition to the technical adjudication of 2,003 applications for mineral prospecting permit, 118 applications for mineral lease, and 859 conflicts or anticipated conflicts between mineral applicants and surface-right applicants; the technical review and endorsement of 732 assignments, coal-permit extensions, lease and license authorizations; the preparation of 1,648 decisions for the departmental committee affecting the extension of oil and gas prospecting permits and potash permits; and the consideration of some 30 plans of unit operation and development for oil and gas fields or areas, definitions of the "known geologic structure" of two producing oil and gas fields were prepared and promulgated, as follows: Last Chance, Utah, February 23, 1935, 26,480 acres; Rex Dome (addition), Wyo., November 21, 1934, 80 acres. The outstanding definitions of the "known geologic structure" of producing oil and gas fields on June 30, 1935, amounted to 986,906 acres in California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.

WATER AND POWER DIVISION

The work of obtaining basic information as to the water-power resources and storage possibilities of public lands was directed chiefly to field phases. The continued availability of Public Works funds made possible the completion of river-utilization surveys involving some 1,900 linear miles of streams in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, with supplemental geologic and geophysical studies of foundation materials and conditions at 14 dam sites in Montana.

Office activities, expanded during the year to include duties involving Carey Act projects, irrigation projects, and reservoir-site reserves, formerly performed by the agricultural division but not transferred to the division of grazing, were necessarily reduced to the minimum. In addition to their showing in the general summary of cases they included action resulting in additions of 72,793 acres to outstanding water-power reserves in 11 public-land States and eliminations of 408,157 acres from such reserves in 8 States, with net decrease of the total reserved area in 22 States to 6,465,007 acres at the end of the year. Field supervision of power projects for the Federal Power Commission involved investigations and report on 15 projects, supervision of construction and operations under 132 projects, and studies of cost accounting on 5 projects.

Statistics compiled by the division show that the holders and users of rights of way for power purposes granted by the Secretary of the Interior had for the calendar year 1934 aggregate installed horsepower of 3,139,010, including 2,094,964 at hydraulic plants and 1,044,046 at fuel plants, and aggregate energy generation of 6,930,000,000 kilowatt-hours, which is less by 25 percent than the production in 1933 because of the elimination of one large producer from the roster of departmental grantees during 1933. Revenues accrued to the Government from these grants aggregate $205,680 from 1912 to 1934, and $15,663 additional has been assessed for the calendar year 1935. Accrued charges for unauthorized occupancy of public lands by power projects prior to the issuance of license therefor by the Federal Power Commission amount to $112,230 additional, about $12,000 of which is in litigation.

AGRICULTURAL DIVISION

Until its functions of agricultural and grazing classification were transferred to the departmental Division of Grazing, March 21, 1935, the work of the agricultural division was restricted chiefly to office phases and to cooperation with departmental officials in preparing and promulgating regulations for effectuating the purposes of the

Taylor Grazing Act of June 28, 1934 (48 Stat. 1269), in organizing the departmental Division of Grazing, in conducting public hearings throughout the West to explain the purposes of the grazing act and the procedure of grazing-district organization, and in the conduct of reconnaissance surveys of grazing resources and conditions in several districts established under said act.

Although the filing of applications for agricultural classification and for designations under the stock-raising and enlarged homestead laws and the Nevada ground-water law was essentially terminated by the withdrawals approved by Executive order of November 26, 1934, the number of unadjudicated applications for rights under these laws transferred to the Division of Grazing on March 31, 1935, aggregated 1,999, an increase of 6.5 percent over the number pending at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Accomplishments prior to the transfer of function, not indicated in the general summary of cases, included the designation of 35,450 acres in 15 States as subject to entry under the Stock Raising Homestead Act and the cancelation of prior designations of 16,945,535 acres under that act, with net reduction of the outstanding designated area in 20 States to 102,429,247 acres; the designation of 1,894 acres in 7 States as enterable under the Enlarged Homestead Act and the cancelation of prior designations of 25,947,994 acres in 5 States, with net reduction of the outstanding designated area in 14 States to 268,467,585 acres; the inclusion of 12,480 acres in 11 States in public water reserves and the exclusion of 460 acres in 3 States from such reserves, with net increase of the gross area reserved in 13 States to 506,748 acres; and the designation of 2,600 acres under the Nevada Ground Water Act, with increase of the aggregate area so designated to 1,732,095 acres. Liaison service was maintained for the Interior Department with the Committee for Acquisition of Submarginal Land, of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and cooperative studies of the grazing and farm resources of Arizona, with the University of Arizona and the United States Forest Service, were continued.

MINING AND OIL AND GAS-LEASING DIVISION

The work of the mining and oil- and gas-leasing divisions, consisting of inspectional and regulatory supervision of mineral prospecting and development on public lands, Indian lands, and naval petroleum reserves, increased notably in volume and in difficulty of effective performance in the fiscal year 1935.

Public lands.-The number of public-land properties under supervision increased 17 percent, to a total of 8,394, involving 10,866,120 acres in 20 States and Alaska, and in the absence of sufficient funds for the most effective use of available personnel or for needed re

placements and increase in supervisory forces the essential work of property inspection, already far in arrears, was perilously meager. With the aid of funds allotted in 1933 by the Public Works Administration the supervisory force was maintained essentially intact, though available only in part for regular inspectional and regulatory work, and was enabled to accomplish important conservational and remedial results outlined more fully under the heading "Public Works projects."

The work of the oil- and gas-leasing division was vastly increased in 1935, both in Washington and in the field, by the necessity of assisting oil and gas permittees in fulfilling departmental requirements for the submission of unit or cooperative plans of operation and development involving permit acreage, and of reviewing and revising the engineering and royalty features of such plans after their submission.

Three unit plans were completed and approved during the yearfor the Round Mountain field, California, the Fourbear field, Wyoming, and for unit 5 of the Cedar Creek field, Montana-and at the end of the year about 400 other plans were awaiting technical consideration in the Washington office alone, with little prospect of timely consideration by the small and fully preoccupied personnel available. The work of this division was further increased by departmental regulations approved October 23, 1934, under the O'Mahoney Water Act, of June 16, 1934 (48 Stat. 977), to include remedial work necessary to preserve and make accessible water supplies found in wells drilled for oil and gas on public land and determined to be valuable for agricultural, domestic, or other purposes. Drilling activity on public lands during the year included the spudding of 203 new wells and the completion of 268 others, 120 of which were productive of oil or gas and 148 barren. The total number of wells under supervision at the end of the year was 7,200 in 15 States and Alaska, including 3,699 capable of oil or gas production. The production of petroleum, natural gas, and natural gasoline from public land in 1935 was substantially greater than in other recent years, and the revenues accrued therefrom were materially increased.

The regular work of the mining division, involving Federal properties under development or exploration for coal, potash, sodium, phosphate rock, sulphur, and oil shale, increased moderately in the fiscal year 1935, but its performance was subordinated, by necessity, to remedial activities financed by Public Works funds. Coal properties under supervision in 14 States and Alaska increased 28, to a total of 758; potash properties in 8 States decreased 8, to a total of 204; sodium properties in 9 States increased 6, to a total of 45; and sulphur properties in 1 State increased 4, to a total of 26.