The most important event which has occurred in the field of geodesy during the past year was the announcement by President Hoover of his program which calls for the completion of the topographic mapping of the United States in the next eighteen years. The topographic mapping necessarily requires geodetic surveys in the form of triangulation and leveling which furnish the geographic positions and elevations, respectively, on which topographic surveying is based. In order that the geodetic work might be executed in greater amounts than in the past, the President recently authorized an increase in the budget for the geodetic work of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The appropriation bill, covering the funds made available to the Department of Commerce and.its bureaus for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1930, which passed during the present session of Congress, carries $316,624 for geodetic operations. This is a substantial increase over the present appropriation of $88,600.