with investigations that relate to safeguarding the lives of miners and of workers in metallurgical establishments, preventing accidents and bringing about more healthful conditions in mines, mills, and smelters, and increasing the national wealth through the elimination of mineral wastes and the production of metals and minerals from deposits now unworked, the bureau has been unable to publish many of them as promptly as their importance and timeliness demanded. Meanwhile the bureau, in efforts to make its printing funds go as far as possible, has reduced the number of copies of reports printed for free distribution, although by so doing it has restricted such a distribution of the results of its investigations as would make these results of most use to the public. Editions of some publications have been exhausted within a few weeks of issue.

The movement for greater safety and efficiency in the mineral industries has developed chiefly within the past few years. Its success depends on the cooperation of all agencies working for the same end, and to insure this cooperation the results of the bureau's work should be readily available. An increase of funds for printing reports, especially those that relate to saving the lives of miners, is strongly recommended.

SUMMARY OF THE MORE URGENT NEEDS OF THE BUREAU.

Below is a summarized statement indicating the sums necessary for extending investigations or improving equipment or facilities during the fiscal year 1917. No reference is made to investigations for which no increase from last year's appropriation is asked.

Sums necessary for important features of the bureau's work in the fiscal year

The headquarters of the bureau are in a rented building, situated on E Street between Seventh and Eighth Streets, in the city of Washington. A large building to house the offices of the Secretary of the Interior, the General Land Office, the United States Geological Survey, the Reclamation Service, and the Bureau of Mines is to be erected in Washington on a plot of ground lying between Eighteenth and Nineteenth and F and G Streets. Contracts for the construction of this building have been prepared and work on it will soon be started.

The experiment station at Pittsburgh is housed in the unsuitable and overcrowded buildings on the arsenal grounds of the War Department at Fortieth and Butler Streets. Temporary provisions for some of the investigations have been made with the Carnegie Institute of Technology. During the previous year plans were pre

pared for new buildings authorized by Congress, and during the

New buildings of the Pittsburgh experiment station.

past year contracts were let and ground broken for their construction. These buildings will stand on land acquired by the Government, an admirable site adjacent to the grounds of the Carnegie Institute of Technology and near the Carnegie Institute, the Carnegie Library, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tract fronts to the north on Forbes Street, and is immediately east of the Forbes Street Bridge over the deep cut of the Pittsburgh Junction Railroad, which bounds the property on the west.

The main building is three stories high, has a frontage of 332 feet, and is flanked at either end with two-story wings that extend back from Forbes Street 211 feet. The general appearance of the building will be plain but dignified. The basement walls are of concrete with a tooled surface, resembling light-gray granite. For the rest the exterior walls are of cream brick to harmonize with monumental buildings of the neighborhood and are crowned with a wide projecting cornice and a low slate roof.

The central part of the building, which is 56 feet by 210 feet, will contain quarters for the administration offices and the mining-engineering division and also a lecture room seating 300 persons. The west wing, 48 by 211 feet, will house the mechanical laboratory. The east wing, of the same size, will accommodate the chemical laboratory. In general the interior finish is substantial but severely plain.

In the rear of the main building will be the power plant and the metallurgical and fuel-testing laboratories in a building 55 feet by 220 feet, built of reinforced concrete and placed on a lower level so as to be invisible from Forbes Street. In this building are an engine house 55 feet by 110 feet, a fuel-testing laboratory 55 feet by 70 feet, and a metallurgical testing laboratory 55 feet by 70 feet. An extension of this building is contemplated to provide a boiler house 55 feet by 110 feet and a 50-foot extension to the fuel-testing laboratory. The general appearance of the buildings is shown in the figure.

Besides the buildings under contract and such extensions as may be constructed within the present appropriation of $500,000, additional buildings will undoubtedly be needed to enable the bureau to carry out the investigations demanded of it.

One of the earliest future needs will be a service building to house all of the shops which otherwise will occupy space in the mechanical laboratory and also a storeroom in order to release valuable space in the basement of the mining-engineering building.

It is altogether probable that the growth of metallurgical investigations will before long render the metallurgical building inadequate and that extensions of the fuel-testing laboratory will be needed.

The Denver experiment station occupies rented quarters in an office building and the San Francisco experiment station has offices in the customhouse and is making use of temporary laboratory facilities provided by a cooperative arrangement at the Panama-Pacific Exposition.

At Salt Lake City the bureau occupies quarters provided by the University of Utah under a cooperative agreement and at Urbana, Ill., the bureau has an office in one of the buildings of the University of Illinois.

In order to make more effective its efforts to increase safety and efficiency in the mineral industries the bureau has made cooperative agreements with various Government bureaus and various State institutions and departments, and in order to use in the conduct of necessary investigations special and expensive equipment that could not be procured with the limited funds available, the bureau has made such agreements with the National Radium Institute and other organizations.

An act passed at the last session of Congress authorized the establishment of Government mining-experiment and mine-safety stations at localities to be selected by the Secretary of the Interior, these stations to be under the technical supervision of the Bureau of Mines. No funds for the construction of these stations were appropriated.

8161°-INT 1915-VOL 1-40