_The Commissioner of Railroads_ has charge of the government's interests in certain railroads to which the United States has granted loans of credit or subsidies in lands or bonds. By the acts of July 1, 1862, and July 1, 1864, Congress, in order to encourage the building of a trans-continental railroad, granted to several Pacific railroad companies subsidies in land adjacent to the roads, and issued certain amounts of bonds on which was guaranteed interest at the rate of six per cent. The amount of lands given and bonds issued were in proportion to the number of miles of road constructed. The lands were a gift. The bonds were to be repaid by the companies with all interest which might have been advanced by the government. From 1850 to 1872 the various railroads received a total of 155,504,994 acres of lands, and $147,110,069 proceeds of bonds and interest paid by the United States. The roads have repaid of this amount $36,723,477, leaving at the present time due from the roads to the United States the sum of $110,386,592. This they will be unable to pay upon the maturity of the bonds, and a bill has been before Congress for several sessions looking towards a better adjustment of this debt. The Commissioner of Railroads was originally styled the "Auditor of Railroad Accounts." The office was created June 19, 1878. _Geological Survey_.--This branch of the Interior Department was established in 1879. Its work is the investigation and determination of the geological structure of the various sections of the country, the composition of soils, the reclamation of waste lands, etc. In this bureau are made topographical surveys and irrigation surveys of arid regions of the United States. The publications connected with this work, number ten Annual Reports, thirteen Monographs, fifty-eight Bulletins and five Statistical Papers. In these there is a discussion of the geological structure of every state and territory, and information concerning the occurrence and production of each great metallic and mineral staple of the country. The bureau comprises one geographical, twelve geological, six paleontological and four accessory divisions. A division of mines and mining publishes an annual report on the mineral resources and production of the United States. _The Superintendent of the Census._--The Superintendent of the Census is appointed each decade for the purpose of taking the regular decennial census. The Eleventh Census has just been taken. The first was taken in 1790. Each census has shown a tendency to be more elaborate and to embrace a greater number of subjects than any preceding. There were employed in the taking of the Eleventh Census 42,000 enumerators, 2,000 clerks, from 800 to 900 special agents, 175 supervisors and 25 experts.