REPORT

OF

THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

Washington, October 31, 1870.

SIR: In preparing this report, I have compressed within a narrow compass a history of the operations of the Department during the past year, and submitted a few suggestions which my brief experience has induced me to believe will, if carried into effect, promote the interests of those branches of the service which are confided to the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior.

PUBLIC LANDS.

During the last fiscal year, public lands were disposed of as follows:

A quantity greater by 429,261.03 acres than that disposed of the previous year. The cash receipts of the office during the same period amounted to $3,663,513 90; a sum less by $809,372 30 than was received the previous year.

The quantity of land taken under the homestead act was greater by 961,545 acres than that of the preceding year.

The area of public lands undisposed of is 1,387,732,209.84 acres, of which 1,307,115,448 acres are unsurveyed.

During the last year 18,165,278 acres were surveyed. Boundary lines have been surveyed and established between California and Oregon, between Nebraska and Colorado, and between Nebraska and Wyoming. One million seven hundred and eighty-seven thousand three hundred

and eighty-eight acres in New Mexico and Colorado were offered at public sale.

The grants for educational purposes since the foundation of the Government amount to 78,576,802 acres; for military services, 73,463,961 acres; for internal improvements, exclusive of railroads and wagonroads, 13,853,054.93. Swamp lands approved to the States amount to 60,459,868.80 acres; and there have been selected by way of indemnity for swamp lands 637,261.81 acres. There has been paid $728,491 16 as indemnity for swamp lands sold by the Government for cash.

Several of my predecessors, in their annual reports, have mentioned the necessity for the speedy adjustment of those claims to land in New Mexico or Arizona which have arisen under the governments which ceded to us jurisdiction and sovereignty. The act of July 22, 1854, prescribes the duties of the surveyor general of New Mexico in relation to such claims. A doubt has been expressed whether the act applied to that region of country acquired by the treaty concluded at Mexico, December 30, 1853. Congress at the last session established a separate surveying district for Arizona, and provided that the surveyor gen eral should have the same power, authority, and duties as were con ferred upon the surveyor general of Oregon. A subsequent enactment, however, authorized and required him to ascertain and report upon claims to lands in said Territory under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain or Mexico, and for that purpose clothed him with all the powers of the surveyor general of New Mexico under the act of 1854. There can be no question that his authority extends to lands in Arizona, acquired under the treaty of Mexico, as well as that of Guadalupe Hidalgo. His reports are not final, but must be transmitted to Congress for its decision. This mode of ascertaining and determining private land claims differs very essentially from that provided in regard to claims of a like origin and character to lands in California, and is liable to serious objections. The Government is not represented by any person to maintain its rights, and the surveyor general reports only upon the documentary or other evidence submitted to him by the interested party. The confirmation of the claim rests ultimately with Congress, but that body is not so well adapted, as is a judicial tribunal, to pass upon controverted matters of fact, or to settle the various and sometimes complicated questions of law arising upon a disputed title. The claim, when coufirmed, is usually designated by its number. It frequently occurs that there is no statement, either in the act of Congress or in the reports of the committees, or in the papers accompanying them, of the precise quantity of land embraced by the claim. General boundaries by natural features of the country are given in the original documents, but they furnish no safe and certain means for determining the real extent of the tract. A striking instance of the loose and indefinite character of these grants is presented in one of the claims confirmed by the act of the 21st of June, 1880. The claimants insisted that the tract should be

surveyed according to the boundaries which they alleged were set forth in the original petition, covering an estimated area of 450 square leagues, or over 2,000,000 acres. I refused to authorize such survey. Under the Mexican colonization law of 1824, and the regulations of 1828, eleven square leagues was the maximum that could be lawfully granted by the governor to any private person, for the purpose of residence and cultivation. I have felt it my duty, therefore, to withhold my sanction to any survey including a larger quantity for each grantee, unless it is unmistakably specified in the grant, or in the act of Congress. Conveying by patent that extent of land to the colonist having a valid claim, or to those deriving title under him, is a faithful compliance with the obligation imposed on the good faith of the United States under their treaty stipulations with Mexico. Should Congress not establish a special tribunal for the investigation of these titles, and prescribe a period within which they should be presented for adjudication, I respectfully urge the expediency of further legislation, explicitly defining the duties of the General Land Office and of this Department, in relation to the survey of confirmed claims of this description.

The Commissioner, in his report, presents the fullest details respecting the public lands, and discusses, with his characteristic ability and research, many questions of general interest.

PATENTS.

During the year ending September 30, 1870, there were filed in the Patent Office 19,411 applications for patents, including reissues and designs, 3,374 caveats, and 160 applications for the extension of patents. Thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two patents, including reIssues and designs, were issued, 101 extended, and 1,089 allowed, but not issued by reason of the non-payment of the final fee.

On the 1st day of October, 1869, the unexpended balance of appropriations was $416,804 58. The appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1871, amounted to $539,100, making an aggregate of $955,904 58. The expenditures since that date have been $541,798 09, leaving an unexpended balance of $414,106 49 available for the remainder of the present fiscal year. The fees received during said year amount to $136,304 29 in excess of the expenditures. The appropriation asked for the next fiscal year is $575,520.

I take pleasure in bearing testimony to the zeal, fidelity, and marked ability with which the Commissioner has discharged his arduous duties. The office is now in excellent working order. The examining corps, with a very few exceptions, is composed of men whose qualifications have been tested by a severe competitive examination, and who have shown peculiar fitness for the work on which they are engaged. The standard for clerical appointments has been raised, and the efficiency of the service greatly improved. Where vacancies occur among the examiners' clerks, they are filled by the appointment of such appli

cants as, upon a thorough examination, give satisfactory evidence of their ability to perform the labor of second-assistant examiners. This system, inaugurated with my sanction, has had a beneficial influence upon the personnel of the office. A spirit of emulation has been incited, and the occupants of inferior places are encouraged in the pursuit of those special studies which will ultimately enable them to fill with credit and efficiency the highest positions. It has also induced a sense of security as to the tenure of their appointments, and fostered a feeling that ability and faithful service will be promptly recognized and justly rewarded.

The number of patents during the past is less than that issued during the preceding year. This fact is no proof that the enterprise of our countrymen has diminished, or that they have abated in the application of their inventive genius and scientific attainments to industrial pursuits and the mechanic arts. The result is due to the increased care and labor which have been bestowed by the office upon applications, whereby frivolous and worthless contrivances have been rejected. I recommended last year the abolition of the right to an appeal from the decision of the Commissioner to one of the judges of the supreme court of this District. This appeal from an executive to a judicial officer-a strange anomaly, unknown in the practice of any other Bureau-worked only evil, and that continually. It no longer exists in interference cases, and can now only be taken in ex parte cases to the court. Even this limited change in the preëxisting law has been attended with the best practical results. The Commissioner has published a volume of decisions in cases determined by him on appeal. The circulation of it among the examiners and solicitors has diffused much valuable infor mation and tended to promote uniformity in the administration of the patent system.

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

During the past year the Department has habitually pursued that policy in Indian affairs which was inaugurated by your direction. The results have proven most conclusively its wisdom, and shown that, even under circumstances of more than ordinary irritation, a peaceful policy appeals with great power even to the wildest savage.

At the time when Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, two noted chiefs of the Sioux nation, were invited to visit the capital, very little hope was entertained on the frontier that war could be avoided. The members of that powerful confederation resented what was declared to be the lack of good faith on our part, in carrying out the provisions of the treaties of 1868. The building of the Union Pacific Railroad had driven the buffalo from their former hunting grounds so far to the southward that it was impracticable for the Indians to rely upon this natural supply of food, clothing, and shelter. Their tents of buffalo skins had rotted with age, their people were in rags, and they were reduced, even for food, to the most absolute dependence upon the rations issued to them

by the Government. Portions of them complained that they had been unable to understand the provisions of the treaties. With the suspicious nature peculiar to their race, they were ready to charge that deceit and fraud had been practiced upon them in interpreting the treaties which had been negotiated under the auspices of commissioners of intelligence and indisputable integrity. A simple, clear, and perfectly frank statement of the attitude of your administration was made to them, both by yourself and the officers of this Department. No attempt was made to hide from them the gravity of the situation, and the absolute necessity for their accepting a new condition of things. They were made to understand the hopelessness of any continued conflict with such a nation as that through whose country they had passed from the Upper Missouri to the capital, and were urged to trust implicitly and peacefully to the good will of the Government and people of the United States, and to accept the necessity of looking, in the future, to agriculture rather than to hunting for subsistence. The visit made a favorable, and, I sincerely trust, an enduring impression upon their minds. An impending war, with all its unnumbered horrors-its waste of blood and treasure-has been averted; the influence of the leading Sioux chief tains continues to be on the side of peace, and their example has been followed by all the principal warlike tribes, which last spring were threatening our frontier settlements.

To perpetuate our friendly relations with the Sioux, much, however, remains to be done. The reservation assigned by the peace commission of 1868 has not been absolutely secured to them. The peculiarity of the legislation on that subject is, that whilst in other respects the treaty was subject to the usual ratification by the Senate, in that particular the action of Congress, as a whole, is declared to be necessary by the original law appointing the commission. The reservation is large in extent, but includes the so-called "bad lands" of the Upper Missouri Valley, which are a mere desert, wholly unsusceptible of any use. I am aware of no reason why the right of the Indians to it should not be recognized and confirmed by positive enactment. Until this be done they cannot be permanently located, or induced to give up their wandering habits and adopt a new mode of life. Our delay in taking action on this disturbing question has already excited a distrust of our good faith, and, if longer continued, will, I fear, render them disaffected and inimical. I earnestly recommend that the attention of Congress be called to the subject.

Under an act passed at the last session the Osages consented to remove to lands provided for them as a permanent home in the Indian Territory, and to relinquish their reservation in Kansas. The latter is in process of survey by the surveyor general of that State, and will soon be thrown open to settlement. Thus is happily ended what at one time foreboded serious disturbance in that quarter. The most valuable portions of their country had already been occupied by