The limitations of funds and personnel prevented the undertaking of any activities aimed toward satisfying the many anticipated needs for information regarding Alaska. Plans for fulfilling Geological Survey responsibilities in Alaska have been made, however, and will be put into effect so far as funds and personnel permit as postwar needs become more acute.

In the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1938, the percentage of the area of the United States covered by topographic maps was given as 45 after deductions had been made for maps that had become obsolete and inadequate. As the latest report gives the percentage as 47.7, the average annual increment over the 7-year period is approximately 0.4 percent and for the 65-year period of the Survey's activity the average annual increment is 0.74 percent. At these rates from 70 to 130 years may be required to map this country completely. At this critical period in our history when a serious, thoughtful effort should be made to appraise our national economy and plan for the future, the lack of this essential part of the basic knowledge required for intelligent planning is a serious handicap that we should strive to overcome.

The investigations of the quantity and chemical quality of the Nation's water resources have been continued. These investigations, which relate to a varying and recurring resource, yield records that are widely used by administrative officials in planning water projects, in dividing water among users, and in determining and administering water rights. The records are also used by engineers in the design and operation of hydraulic works and other structures affected by water; by financiers in the consideration of investments; and by lawyers and courts in the adjudication of rights and the assessment of benefits and damages. During the war the information has been conspicuously valuable in the placement, design, and operation of military and naval establishments of many kinds, including power and industrial plants, munitions plants, cantonments, airfields, and hospitals, and in developing water supplies for new concentrations of population brought about by war activities. It will be no less useful in the postwar period of adjustment and reconversion to the requirements of the Nation at peace. As the limits of supply are approached, more and better water is always being sought, and investigations of its availability and utility must be continued.

Although hampered by manpower deficiencies in critical positions, in both field and headquarters staffs, the Conservation Branch has maintained a high level of accomplishment in classifying the publicdomain lands as to their mineral and water-power potentialities, in supervising the development and production of minerals from leased lands under Departmental supervision, and in rendering consultative

assistance to various Government agencies and to individuals concerned with public-land administration and minerals development.

The land-classification activities required the expeditious handling of more than 13,000 cases, each involving many geologic investigations and determinations by the field and headquarters staffs; the administrative definition of the known geologic structure of seven producing oil or gas fields; the geologic appraisal of 80 unit plans of operation; and numerous special reports to the General Land Office, mostly in aid of a program for the discovery of new oil and gas fields or deposits during the national emergency.

Mineral-lease supervision, involving the work of special study groups, and the regulation of the development and production of coal, oil, gas, sodium, potash, lead, zinc, and many other minerals from public, Indian, and Naval-petroleum-reserve lands, were continued with due regard to those approved conservation principles which have long guided the Survey in its minerals-recovery policy. Known reserves of such minerals on leased lands under supervision are estimated to have a value in place in excess of 2 billion dollars. Production from these reserves amounts to $150,000,000 annually and is rendering royalty returns in benefit of the public interest amounting to $12,000,000.

The Solid Fuels Administration for War

Despite numerous difficult wartime obstacles, the coal mining industry has supplied the unprecedented quantities of fuel required by war production plants to equip the armed forces. This the coal-industry accomplished with the smallest labor supply in a half century.

The civilian population, although at times inconvenienced by winter emergencies and frequently having been obliged to burn substitutes, has had sufficient solid fuels to keep healthfully warm, if not always comfortable. The Nation also has had enough fuel to maintain its wartime civilian economy at an extraordinarily high level.

This is an achievement of which the industry, the government and the consumer can be proud, considering the difficulties involved. We solved, by democratic processes, the perplexing problems which our enemies would have sought to solve by despotic procedures. It was the result of careful planning and control by the Solid Fuels Administration for War, of hard work and good management by the miners and operators, and of cooperation by all parties concerned.

During the war the American miners' average output rose to the highest level of all time; higher than that of any other nation. They worked longer hours than the free miners of any industrialized country in the world.

Difficulties encountered in the production of solid fuels lay, primarily,

in the steady loss of mine manpower to the armed services and to other wartime industries. In many instances mine workers were attracted by higher pay and safer, less arduous employment. We cannot, however, overlook the fact that recurrent disputes between labor and management, which plague this industry in peace and war, prevented the production of additional coal. We were able to hasten the restoration of mine output, thus avoiding major impairment of war production, by helping to speed the settlement of disputes and by taking possession of the mines on various occasions.

While we did not lack fuel from underground which was needed to wage this war, the heavy wartime drain accelerated the depletion of reserves of high grade metallurgical coals and other special purpose coals, and brought closer the time when it will be necessary to deal with the problem of their exhaustion.

The most critical period with respect to our supply of solid fuels occurred in the fiscal year just passed. Bituminous-coal requirements soared to an unprecedented 626,000,000 tons during the fuel year which ended on March 31, 1945. Yet the lack of mine manpower and all-too-frequent strikes caused production to fall some 16,000,000 tons under that figure. Furthermore, we were approximately 5,000,000 tons short of the 66,100,000 tons of anthracite necessary to meet our needs.

Since these deficits in bituminous coal were of particular kinds that were essential to the manufacture of steel, chemicals, and other vital war goods, and upon which a large part of the Nation depended for heating fuel, they presented problems of unusual complexity. It was only by exercising the most careful control of distribution of mine output, by requiring industries to use coal out of stockpiles built up to record heights earlier in the war, and by the insistence upon fuel conservation and the acceptance of alternative fuels by industries and householders, that those problems were solved.

The high degree of success with which distribution difficulties were overcome was due, in great part, to the cooperation of producers, wholesalers, dock operators, and retail dealers in carrying out, without recourse to coupon rationing with all of its undesirable aspects, measures for maintaining an equitable sharing of the available solid fuels supply.

Early in the war, the need for careful planning and control of distribution was recognized. Requirements were forecast a year ahead, production was estimated in advance, and basic distribution patterns were established. Industry representatives were consulted extensively in the formulation of programs. Normal distribution channels were disturbed as little as possible. Controls and regulations were kept at a minimum, giving industry the widest possible latitude for exercising judgment. Under such a policy, producers and con

sumers alike were enabled to act intelligently. Probable difficulties were detected in sufficient time to permit appropriate counter measures to be taken as they arose.

We did everything within our power to help the coal-producing industry to increase its output. This included aid in obtaining the deferment of as many essential workers as possible from military induction and in providing mine operators with machinery, equipment and supplies. We made a vigorous, if unsuccessful, effort to obtain the release of experienced mine workers from military service after the fighting in Europe was ended. I regret that, because of the lack of funds, we were unable to carry on as effective a fuel-conservation program as conditions seemed to require:

It now appears that the job of maintaining an adequate fuel supply during the winter of 1945-46 would require that the Solid Fuels Administration for War retain the right to direct the distribution of solid fuels, and to stimulate the use of alternative fuels wherever the scarce types are not available.

Disruptions in the flow of coal, due to bad weather, strikes, or other causes, may require emergency action from time to time. We face a most difficult task in preparing for such emergencies while at the same time shipping coal to Europe to help prevent chaos and anarchy from sweeping the liberated nations because of the lack of fuel.

The General Land Office

The public land is an asset which must be taken into account in any evaluation of the natural resources of the United States. This 778million acre domain belonging to the people is conservatively estimated as representing nearly a quarter-billion dollars' worth of real estate which is under the administration of the General Land Office. While it is obvious that no man can compute with unalterable accuracy the permanent value of land, it is believed that this vast expanse of public domain in the United States and Alaska comprises real estate values aggregating $235,000,000 of which $125,000,000 are located in the United States itself. Roughly divided, the assets comprise forest lands and woodlands worth $160,000,000, grazing lands (outside of districts administered under the Taylor Grazing Act) whose value is placed at $30,000,000, and other lands, including barren areas as well as those devoted to special uses, valued at $45,000,000. In addition to this conservative evaluation of the land, technical services rendered to the public and to agencies of both Federal and state governments by the General Land Office constitute other less tangible factors whose values are estimated to bring the total worth of the people's assets in this real estate to $250,000,000.

The continued management of this property under progressive

conservation policies for use and development with an eye to the requirements of the future, is essential, since in no other way can the domestic demands for maximum beneficial use of the land and its resources adequately be met in the reconversion period.

Already, the trend of scientific research has pointed the way to new fields of usefulness for the public domain, broadening the scope of activities in the development of resources beneath the surface and increasing the opportunities for utilization of the land itself. The wider horizons for mineral uses revealed by the discovery and development of atomic energy, the steadily mounting requirements for lumber and other forest products to repair the ravages of war, and the growing demands for ex-servicemen for land settlement opportunities, serve to illustrate the trend toward more extensive usage in the year immediately ahead.

Obviously, this contribution to future economic advancement will enhance the value to the American people of their public domain. However, it will also bring a corresponding increase in the responsibilities facing the General Land Office. New methods and new laws must be provided with which to carry out these new tasks which, in effect, mark the beginning of a new era in national land administration. Land administration experiences in connection with the prosecution of the war have sharply accentuated the pattern for efficient management of the public domain in time of peace. At the close of the 1945 fiscal year, definite alterations in Federal law and in procedures of the General Land Office were revealed as imperatively needed to bring about the type of management to which the public is entitled and without which the maximum beneficial use of the national lands and their resources, cannot be assured. Some of these needs long have been recognized, but their enactment was held in abeyance for the duration of the war. Today, freed from the restrictions of military necessity, problems awaiting solution include the rejuvenation of our Federal mining laws and the enactment of a general mineral leasing statute. A thoroughgoing examination of the remaining vacant public land to determine its availability for homesteading use also should be undertaken to meet to some extent the needs of returned veterans for land settlement opportunities in the United States and Alaska. Other factors equally essential to the successful administration of a well-rounded and integrated national land use program are set forth in the detailed report of the General Land Office.

Meantime, it is noteworthy that this official real estate agent of Federal Government closed its books for the 1945 fiscal year with a net profit both in conservation advancement and in financial gains resulting from its work. Operating through four branches with 12 divisions in Washington, 5 agencies in the field with 25 offices scat