From this collection the reader can see the whole scope of the work of the survey. There are letters between the director in Washington and the geologist in charge in Madison outlining plans of procedure and discussing appropriations, cooperation with other surveys, technical problems, personnel, examination of specimens, printing problems, and countless other details. For many years a monthly report was sent to the Washington office in which achievements were summarized and aims formulated. Annual sets of instructions were issued specifying the particular areas and problems to be studied by each section or division, and suggesting the stages of accomplishment that were expected from time to time.
Much correspondence took place with other division heads and directors of state surveys, with fellow scientists in allied fields, editors of scientific journals, and instructional forces of other colleges. An especially close connection was maintained with the University of Chicago, where Van Hise served as non-resident professor of structural geology from 1892 to 1903. Mineral land agents, mining companies, ore distributing concerns, and manufacturers were all interested in the progress of the survey and extended aid in the matter of supplying maps and statistical data and in permitting inspection of property. These organizations as well as curators of museums and private individuals frequently sent in ore specimens for analysis and sought technical advice from the survey.
Necessarily there was much exchange of correspondence with field workers, a great deal of which dealt with routine matters of interest to one studying particular localities or reconstructing a plan of a representative survey. The problem of securing satisfactory assistants was always a pressing one, as evidenced by the great bulk of letters on the subject, especially since there was a never ceasing drain of trained geologists to other divisions, other universities, and to private industry.
The university department of geology was closely allied with the work of the survey, and since the incoming correspondence was filed as one unit, a considerable amount of it deals with university affairs. Appropriations for the department, faculty appointments, curricula, students' qualifications and positions, and academic affairs in general are touched upon in the letters. In 1898-99 Van Hise was a member of the university athletic council and a lively correspondence took place with other university boards over intercollegiate athletics. In the series of letter books where he segregated the more informal of his letters to the federal survey and his other professional and personal affairs are to be found Van Hise's replies. Here too are copies of letters to his colleagues, some expressions of views on civic and educational matters, a few business letters, and a number of articles on non-technical subjects.
Several other letter books are grouped in separate subseries. In the two volumes entitled “Lake Superior Survey” are letters to assistant geologists surveying the Crystal Falls and Iron River areas in Michigan in the early 1890's. A volume labeled “Carnegie Institution” contains Van Hise's letters for the year 1903-04 when he served as adviser on geo-physics to that institution. Dr. Leith's letters written while collecting and preparing an exhibit of Lake Superior ores for the St. Louis exposition of 1903 are in a separate volume. Another group of six volumes contains his letters dated from 1899 to 1905, the early ones dealing predominantly with his study of the Mesabi iron range in Minnesota and the publication of his monograph on the subject, but taking on more and more the nature of administrative work and the management of the survey. In the same series are several letters to Van Hise during the latter's frequent and prolonged absences, discussing departmental and survey work, and such miscellaneous items as monthly reports of meetings of the University Science Club and several brief articles relating to his on investigations.
The correspondence consists of fifteen file boxes of letters received at the Madison office, dating from 1882 to 1912, and thirty-two letter press books containing copies of letters sent, grouped in series by the writers. The letter books have indexes to the names of persons to whom letters were addressed; they are all in a good state of preservation and fairly legible.
Several volumes of letter books containing manuscripts of articles published by the survey and available in printed form were not preserved; likewise five file boxes of bills and receipts largely for equipment and supplies used on field trips were destroyed. The correspondence, however, has been preserved intact. Notebooks kept by geologists in the field are on file in the geology department of the university.
