§9-4-2. State Geologist - Duties generally.

(a) It shall be the duty of the State Geologist to devote his entire time to the administrative duties of his office and to making explorations and examinations of the mineral, agricultural, biological and other natural resources of the state so as to determine accurately the quality and character of its soils and their adaptation to agricultural purposes and especially to the occurrence and quality of phosphates, marls, gypsum and other natural fertilizers, its mineral resources and their locations, character and capacity for development, its water powers and their capacity, its forest trees and their utilities and distribution and its other plant and animal forms useful or noxious; and it shall be the duty of him and his assistants, whenever they discover any deposits of ores or other resources of value, to notify immediately the owners of the land on which such deposits occur, but no individual or firm or corporation shall have the right to call upon or require the State Geologist to enter upon any special survey for his or its individual benefit. The survey is to proceed upon a settled plan for the benefit of the public and prospectors and investors in general.

(b) He shall also make to the Legislature at each of its regular sessions a report of the progress of his explorations and examinations together with such analyses of soils or of minerals, mineral waters, etc., with maps and charts as may be needed for illustrations, which report shall be printed and shall be the exclusive property of the state.

(c) He shall also make collections of specimens illustrative of the geological, agricultural and other natural resources of the state which, after they shall have served the immediate purposes of the survey, shall be placed in the museum of the survey in Smith Hall at the University of Alabama as a permanent exhibit, except that duplicates of these specimens and excess material may be distributed by the State Geologist to educational institutions of the state which may request them and have use for them.

(d) He shall also from time to time prepare or cause to be prepared monographs, special reports or bulletins of the geology and varied resources of the state which shall be printed and published under the provisions of Article 5, Chapter 4 of Title 41.

(Code 1896, §2242; Code 1907, §690; Acts 1923, No. 512, p. 683; Code 1923, §1034; Acts 1927, No. 386, p. 456; Code 1940, T. 55, §246.)