INTERIOR, Department of the, one of the executive departments of the United States whose heads are cabinet secretaries. e "home department." long existent in all European governments, was constituted in the United States by act of 3 March 1849. Its functions had been exercised by bureaus or officials of nearly all the other departments: patents, copyrights, public documents and the census belonged to the State Department; pub lic lands, mines and judicial accounts, to the Treasury; Indian affairs, to the War Depart ment; and pensions to the War and Navy, each for its own pensioners. By later laws the In terior was given charge of education, public surveys (including the Geological Survey; but the Coast and Geodetic Survey belongs to the Treasury), subsidized railroads, Territories, na tional parks and reservations, returns of public contracts made by several other departments, some charitable institutions .in the District of Columbia, and a number of other matters. The Secretary makes an annual report of the num ber of public documents received and dis tributed. He has a salary of $10,000 and two assistant secretaries. All patents issued by the United States must be signed by him. The first Secretary was Thomas Ewing of Ohio. The list of secretaries since 1900 is Ethan A. Hitch cock of Missouri, James R..Garfield of Ohio, Richard A. Ballinger of Washington, Walter A. Fisher of Illinois and Franklin K. Lane of California. Besides the assistant secretaries and chief clerks, the Department of the Interior includes among its officials commissioners of Land Office, Pensions, Education, Indian Affairs, Patents, and directors of the Geological Sur vey, Reclamation Service and Bureau of Mines.
In the annual report for 1915 the Secretary of the Interior calls attention to what he terms the °foundations of power" of the United States. The country possesses every mineral of importance needed in industry, and is the only country so fortunate. We produce 66 per cent of the world's petroleum, 60 of copper, 40 of coal and iron and 32 of lead and zinc. We can build a battleship or an automobile (ex cepting the rubber tires), a railroad, or a fac tory with theproducts of American mines and forests. To feed the soil we have plenty of phosphorus, some potash, and have learned to extract nitrogen from the air, having cheap hydro-electric power in abundance. We can produce all the grains, fruits, vegetables and fibres known to the temperate zone, and many tropical plants. And we have unlimited water power, besides two hundred and odd million acres of public lands; if we add Alaska, that is 400,000,000 more acres. We issue 200 patents a day to American inventors; of important patents granted by the United States since 1875, three quarters are to American citizens. The great American desert, as we used to call it, is disappearing under the wise system that utilizes the money received from sale of public lands for irrigation works to reclaim the dry areas. The Secretary thinks the largest task awaiting our government is the proper dyking, damming and utilization of our rivers.