to the lessee undisturbed occupancy of the land needed for such use, and should reserve for future utilization all land believed to possess value for water-power development, these lands to be designated by the President but to be open to other entry, subject to this reserved right wherever separation of the water-power use and other use is possible.

EXAMINATIONS UNDER THE WEEKS ACT.

The act approved March 1, 1911 (Stat. L., vol. 36, p. 961), which provides for the acquisition of land for the purpose of conserving the navigability of navigable streams, imposed a new duty on the Geological Survey. Section 6 of the law provides for an examination by the Geological Survey of land whose purchase is under consideration and the submission of a report based thereon to the Secretary of Agriculture," showing that the control of such lands will promote or protect the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie." The law thus places upon the Geological Survey the determination of the fundamental question whether the control of the specific tract of land pertains to the promotion or protection of navigability, and stipulates that a favorable report to the Secretary of Agriculture must precede the purchase of the tract considered.

The report thus required of the Geological Survey is believed to involve something more than perfunctory action and to consist of a showing of facts rather than an expression of opinion. The solution of complex scientific problems is required in order to establish actual and substantial relationship between control of headwater tracts and the navigation of streams, and while the respon sibility for this determination had not been sought by the Geological Survey, this new application of scientific investigation to an administrative problem has been accepted by the Survey as directly in line with its geologic and hydrographic work. It was at once recognized that as the determinative agent, whose favorable report must precede any action by the National Forest Reservation Commission, the Geological Survey would be exposed to criticism alike by those favoring a "broad interpretation" of both natural and statutory law and by those who had opposed the enactment of the Weeks law as embodying a subterfuge.

On the initiative of the Survey a conference was arranged between representatives of the Department of Agriculture and of the Department of the Interior, and an agreement was reached concerning procedure in the administration of this new law, so far as the Forest Service and the Geological Survey are concerned, to the end that the examinations of land by the two bureaus might be coordinated. In this agreement, which was approved by the two Secretaries on May 3, 1911, it is set forth that the examination by the Geological

Survey will include the determination of the relation of the headwater streams to the navigable streams to which they are tributary, the local observation of the headwater stream or streams draining the tract or tracts in question with reference to run-off characteristics and to nature and amount of suspended material, the classification of the surface formations of the tract with reference to permeability and storage capacity and to resistance to erosion, and the securing of such additional topographic data, in cooperation with the Forest Service, as are needed by the two bureaus in their examination of the tract. In accordance with the terms of this agreement work was prosecuted in Georgia, Tennessee, and New Hampshire in May and June, resulting in the submission of two favorable reports to the Secretary of Agriculture before the end of the fiscal year.

Report No. 1 refers to a tract of 31,377 acres in Fannin and Union counties, Ga., and states the following general conclusions, based on local field examination, which support the proposition that the control of this tract in northern Georgia will promote and protect the navigation of Hiwassee and Tennessee rivers, in whose basins the land examined lies.

(a) Toccoa River is a headwater stream contributing a relatively large low-season flow, which makes its basin one of the class best adapted to promote the navigability of the river during the dry

season.

(b) On the Gennett tract, as elsewhere in this general district, excessive soil wastage is in progress, which is chargeable to the practice of yearly burning over the forest lands, to the tillage of steep slopes, and to the presence of fallow fields.

(c) Control of these lands will to an appreciable extent insure the continuance and possible betterment of the important low-water contribution of Toccoa River and will diminish the present excessive delivery of sediment into this tributary of Hiwassee and Tennessee rivers.

The National Forest Reservation Commission, on the basis of this report and the report presented by the Forest Service, authorized the purchase of this tract.

Report No. 2 refers to a tract in Blount and Sevier counties, Tenn. This tract comprises 58,213 acres in the upper drainage basin of Little River, which enters Tennessee River below Knoxville. Little River itself is navigable in its lower part and the importance of the Tennessee as a navigable stream is well known.

The general conclusions based on the local examination and presented below support the proposition that the control of this tract will promote and protect the navigation of Little and Tennessee rivers, on whose watersheds the land examined lies. These conclusions are:

(a) Little River is a stream whose headwater branches contribute a low-season flow largely in excess of the average discharge of the Tennessee drainage basin.

(b) Excessive erosion is observed in various parts of the tract, especially in those parts which have been subject to repeated burning. A sensible reduction of the amount of sediment delivered to Little River seems possible through forest management.

Action on this report by the commission was postponed, because of questions as to terms and conditions of sale raised in the report submitted by the Forest Service.

Report No. 3, on adjoining tracts in Little River basin, aggregating 3,365 acres, based on the field examination covering the tract referred to in report No. 2, was transmitted to the Secretary of Agriculture in July.

The only topographic work thus far found necessary in these examinations has been a resurvey of the Little River drainage basin, in Tennessee. Hydrographic work in the White Mountain region was begun in May and will be continued through the summer, when the necessary geologic examination will also be made of the tracts selected by the Forest Service for proposed purchase. This plan of procedure was decided upon early in May, and the selection of tracts in the southern Appalachians for immediate examination and report before June 30 was actuated, first, by the fact that much more work had already been done in that area by the Geological Survey; second, by the fact that the geologic conditions in the region were believed to be much more favorable to the contention that an indisputable relation exists between forest lands and stream regulation, and further by the fact that the offering of two large tracts having an area of 90,000 acres in especially favorable localities, promised the maximum chance for favorable reports within a minimum time.

NECROLOGY.

SAMUEL FRANKLIN EMMONS.

The Geological Survey suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Samuel Franklin Emmons on March 28, 1911, after a brief illness. Mr. Emmons served the Survey as an administrative chief and a scientific leader from the first year of its history, so that mention of his attainments and his work furnishes also a record of the 32 years of achievement and progress by the organization.

Mr. Emmons was graduated from Harvard College in 1861, and after a period of study abroad joined Clarence King as an assistant in the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. For nearly 10 years he remained with this organization, seeing varied service and gaining wide knowledge of the geology of the West.

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With Mr. Arnold Hague he was joint author of the second volume of the great Fortieth Parallel series, entitled "Descriptive geology." With the organization of the present Survey, in 1879, Mr. Emmons was placed by King in charge of the Rocky Mountain division, with instructions to give exclusive attention to the study of the mineral wealth, and soon thereafter he began his study of the Leadville district, then newly opened. His monograph and atlas on the "Geology and mining industry of Leadville" were published by the Geological Survey in 1886, and at once established the reputation of their author. The Leadville report was preceded in publication by Becker's monograph on the "Geology of the Comstock lode and the Washoe district "2 and by Curtis's less extensive report on the "Silver-lead deposits of Eureka, Nev.," but with these, and more decisively than these, it marked the beginning of a new era in economic geology and became a model for the numerous monographic reports on western mining districts that have since been published by the United States Geological Survey.

Until a few years ago Mr. Emmons continued in general charge of the investigations of western ore deposits carried on by the Survey, and many studies were planned and completed under his supervision and with his suggestive advice. In some reports he appeared as collaborator; in others his share was less patent, although perhaps scarcely less important. He was the senior author of the monograph on the "Geology of the Denver Basin" and was the sole or joint author of several folios of the Geologic Atlas of the United States. His contributions to scientific periodicals and to the transactions of societies were numerous and important. One of the most notable of these contributions was his paper on the "Secondary enrichment of ore deposits," which was the outcome of long-continued studies at Butte and elsewhere and which enunciated principles that were at once generally recognized as being not only of unusual scientific importance but also of great practical value.

During the later years of his life Mr. Emmons, freed from the cares of official administration, returned to his studies at Leadville, and, in association with Prof. J. D. Irving, of Yale University, was engaged in extending his earlier results in the light of additional facts brought out by extensive mining operations continued through three decades. Although some of his newer material was published in 1907 as the Survey's Bulletin 320, on the Downtown district of Leadville, Colo., Mr. Emmons did not live to see the publication of his final results. The task of completing the report has fallen to Prof. Irving.

1 Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. 12, 1886.

2 Idem, vol. 3, 1882.

3 Idem, vol. 7, 1884.

Trans. Am. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. 30, 1901, pp. 177-217.

Mr. Emmons was a prominent member of many scientific societies and academies both in this country and abroad, including the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was treasurer at the time of his death. In 1903 he held the office of president of the Geological Society of America. In 1909 both Harvard and Columbia Universities conferred upon him the honorary degree of Sc. D.

The chief characteristics of his work were thorough painstaking honesty of method, wide and penetrating vision in the interpretation of his facts, remarkable soundness and stability of judgment, and clarity of exposition. Himself able to express his thought in unusually clear and felicitous language, Mr. Emmons was an invaluable critic, not only of substance but of form, and those geologists who in their younger days were so fortunate as to receive his kindly yet keen criticism have found their appreciation of what he did for them grow with the passing years and will always hold him in grateful remembrance. His own writings are an eloquent protest against the view that sound science can find appropriate expression in slovenly writing.

In the course of his long life Mr. Emmons had seen the Far West make astonishing progress, especially in the mining industry, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that by his work he had materially advanced this development. He had received unsought and bore modestly the honors that men of science most prize. His name not only stood high on the rolls of science but was known to miners throughout the Rocky Mountain region as that of the man who more than anyone else had applied geologic knowledge in a way to convince them of its value.

WORK OF THE YEAR.

PUBLICATIONS.

The Survey's success in reaching the public with the results of its scientific work is directly measured by the distribution of its publications. In spite of the organization of the Bureau of Mines and the consequent removal of the deservedly popular technologic bulletins from the Survey's publications, the total number of reports and maps distributed by the Geological Survey in 1911 was 1,208,797, an increase of 6 per cent over the corresponding figures for 1910. An even larger percentage of increase is shown in the number of letters received containing remittances for sale publications, while the receipts for topographic maps increased about 10 per cent. The total distribution of topographic maps, which includes congressional distribution, exchanges, and issue for departmental use, as well as the half million maps sold, exhibits the gratifying increase of 15 per cent. The total distribution to the public of books and maps is equivalent