internal improvements, for opening ordinary roads, for spanning the North American continent with railways, and still further, in meeting the wants of diversified localities by liberal provisions for works of this class to connect centres of trade, and afford rapid means of intercommunication.

The landed estate of the Union is the great inheritance of the American people. How was it acquired, and what is its extent?

The people of the United States, in emerging from the war of independence, were the holders of extensive regions of country falling within the out-boundaries of the United States, as acknowledged in the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 with Great Britain. These rear or western lands were claimed by several States on the Atlantic, on the ground of exclusive title, in some cases from ocean to ocean, and in others to an indefinite extent in the wilderness.

These conflicting interests gave rise to controversies and discord. The State of New York, now the centre of trade and affluence on this continent, destined in her career of prosperity to reach a pinnacle of greatness second to no commercial power of the globe, readily yielded her claim to the undefined territory, and, responding to the appeals of the revolutionary Congress, all other like adverse interests were surrendered, whereby the proprietary title of the United States to these western lands became absoÎute and complete.

The United States held no public lands in any of the original thirteen States, except for public uses, fortifications, arsenals, light-houses, and dock-yards. Vermont was not a party, as a State, to the Union of 1776, her territory having been claimed by New York and New Hampshire, but was admitted as a State in 1791, while Maine, which had been claimed and governed by Massachusetts, did not enter the Union until 1820.

Kentucky was originally part of the Territory of Virginia, but in 1792 was admitted, having no public lands within her limits. Tennessee, which formed a part of North Carolina, became a State of the Union in 1796, but the general government now holds no public lands within the limits of that State, the same having been relinquished by acts of Congress.

Excluding the area of all the States above mentioned from the surface of the republic as it existed in 1783, with limits extending from the northern lakes to the thirty-first degree of latitude, and from the Atlantic to the middle channel of the Mississippi, the residue constitutes the public lands of that year, equal to about 354,000 square miles, or 226,560,000

acres.

The whole of this area, every acre of it, has been completely surveyed, and the field-notes recorded, while accurate plats have been protracted exhibiting in legal subdivisions the entire surface, and all in exact accordance with the rectangular system. That system stands in marked contrast with irregularities as to form in the landed estate of the parent country, in which, although under the direction of men of exalted science, a cadastral survey, after the lapse of centuries of civilization, has not yet been completed, it having been estimated in 1863 that it would require an appropriation of £90,000 sterling a year, for twenty-one years, to extend such survey over the whole of the British islands.

Having thus shown the extent of our public lands as originally acquired, it is now in place briefly to trace their extension to the present limits. By the treaty of peace in 1763, between England, France, and Spain, it

was agreed that the western boundary of the Anglo-American colonies should be fixed "irrevocably" by a line drawn along the middle channel of the river Mississippi, thereby relinquishing, in favor of France, all the territory claimed by the latter in the region west of the Mississippi.

This line consequently was received in 1783 as our western boundary, but within twenty years thereafter, a greater statesman (Mr. Jefferson) than the king who had acceded to this restriction took means to strengthen our claim to the region beyond the Rocky Mountains, by restoring to us the important link of continuity westward to the Pacific, which had been surrendered by the treaty of 1763. He considered it coincident with the public law, particularly in view of the American discovery, in 1792, of the mouth of the Columbia, to order an exploration of the Missouri and its branches to their sources, so as to trace out to its termination on the Pacific some stream "which might offer the most direct and practicable water communication across the continent for the purposes of commerce." This measure was originated before the ratification, on 31st October, 1803, of the treaty whereby the French republic ceded to us the ancient province of Louisiana.

The Florida cession of 1819 from Spain followed, and then the admi:sion of Texas in 1846, retaining her public lands. The treaty of that year with England, and the Mexican cessions of 1848 and 1853, completed our south-western limits on the Gulf, the Rio Grande, thence westward to the Pacific, and giving us frontier on that ocean and Puget Sound of one thousand six hundred and twenty miles; said cession of 1848 adding to the sea line we had on the Gulf of Mexico, under the Spanish cession of 1819, four hundred miles of coast, extending from the mouth of the Sabine to the Rio Grande, thus making our sea-coast line on the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and on the Pacific, equal to five thousand one hundred and twenty miles.

By these important acts the public lands have been increased in extent nearly seven times their area at the close of the last century, and are now seventeen times the surface of the kingdom of Prussia, including her territorial increase growing out of the recent war with Austria.

They are in still larger ratio greater in area than England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, including the Channel Islands and the other British European possessions.

The area of our domain was estimated some years ago at upwards of 1,450,000,000 of acres, but is now found, by calculations based on more specific data, to equal 1,465,468,800 acres.

The soil of the flourishing States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, once a part of the national territory, has nearly all passed into individual ownership. The undisposed of portions of the public domain, in greater or lesser extent, exist in the northern regions of the Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior; in the southern, east of the Mississippi and fronting on the Gulf of Mexico; in the tier of States having that river as an eastern boundary, and still further westward in all the other political communities, States, and Territories, stretching to and over the Rocky Mountains, the Cascades, and Sierra Nevada, extending to the Pacific slope, with that ocean as a frontier, and the rich mineral State lying immediately east of and adjacent to the two great States of the Pacific.

What is the system, founded in legislation, by which this half conti

nent is so dealt with and required to be administered that our own people and immigrants who propose to enter the American family can secure rights to settlements with complete, absolute, and indefeasible grants?

It is by the establishment, in the first instance, of surveying departments, now ten in number, with sixty-one land districts, each, when in operation, having a register and receiver to file applications, and take the steps required by statutory provisions as preliminary to the acquisition of inceptive and complete title.

In our present system of surveying the public lands, the lines under the first ordinance started from eastern Ohio; afterwards advanced into the old Natchez settlement, in the present State of Mississippi, and now penetrate to the southernmost cape of Florida, sweeping around the Pacific coast, from San Diego to the Straits of Fuca. Ever growing and extending, they now cover an immense surface. This was not the work of a single period, but of years of congressional legislation, and anxious and patient thought on the part of those from time to time intrusted with the execution of the laws.

It is a subject of interest to trace the progress of the improvement of the system since the treaty of Grenville, of 1795, the first public act by which the Indian title to lands northwest of the Ohio river was extinguished.

For the better regulating the surveys, as well as for convenience of description, meridian and base lines were found necessary, and accordingly instituted and established by law. In later years, particularly since the act of reorganization in 1836, the General Land Office has had direct and full control of the surveying departments. The surveying service since the act of reorganization has taken rapid strides forward in the way of improving the system in all its branches, by the selection of the peaks of the highest mountains as initial points of base lines and meridians.

As the convergency of the meridians must exist, and it is impossible to make ordinary measurements mathematically correct, on account of the inequalities of the earth's surface, and the imperfection of instruments, it is not the practice, as in early times, to rely upon a single meridian and and base line to check the surveys, but what are called guide meridians and correction lines or standard parallels have been instituted, which are all run as nearly as human skill can effect it upon true meridians and parallels of latitude.

This system, in perfect accordance with the sphericity of the earth, secures uniformity and beauty in our surveys, particularly over a large surface, which by any other method it would be impossible to attain.

The system adopted for guide meridians is to run them at convenient intervals, making offsets at each standard parallel equal to the convergency, which may be readily calculated and offsetted, even in advance of the survey of the standard parallels. Those parallels are run from the meridians and guide meridians, upon true parallels of latitude; one for every four or five townships in the high latitudes, as in Oregon and Washington, and from six to ten townships in the lower latitudes, while a set of township and section corners of the legal width, of six miles for each township, and one mile to each section, are marked and established thereon, without reference to the closing lines and corners of the townships and section lines south of the parallel, so as to take up and thus arrest the

convergency of the meridional lines of the surveys, inevitable in running from one standard parallel to the next succeeding one.

These delicate and widely extended operations require not only a theoretical knowledge of astronomical science, but also a practical acquaintance with all the instruments employed in field operations by the surveyors general, who have the direct control of them.

Among the most important surveying duties is the marking in the field of the lines and corners of the surveys in a distinct and durable manner. These marks, when identified as the originals, placed there by the sworn deputy surveyor of the United States, constitute in fact the survey, taking precedence over field-notes, official plats, or any like evidence, controlling all future proceedings in re-survey, and respected accordingly in proceedings affecting title before the courts of the country.

The surveying laws and our system presuppose that occupants and others desiring to obtain titles from the Government are to have every facility in selecting and taking possession of the tracts they may purchase, and that in conforming their improvements to the marks they may find on the grounds, they may do so with the full assurance of their correctness, and that they cannot be disturbed by any future surveying operations.

Hence by the second section of the act of February 11, 1805, the corners and boundaries returned by the surveyor general are confirmed, and required to be taken and considered as the true corners and boundaries, and of these the field-notes and plats are merely the recorded desscription.

This system, so complete in itself, so simple and certain in fixing the lines upon the earth's surface, not only of town lots, but of agricultural lands, from 640, 320, 160, 80, and 40 acre tracts, has accomplished its work in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and nearly so in Louisiana and Florida.

In those States are to be found climate, soil, and products equal to the wants and comforts of civilized man-cereals, esculents, and fruits in abundance, in the higher and in the middle latitudes, with the addition of the staples, tobacco and corn; while still further south are the cotton fields and sugar-cane, the orange, citron, and lemon.

Although the lines of the public surveys have been thus established, the system has yet further to advance upon the fields of Minnesota, northern and southern Dakota, in Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and in the three great States, Nevada, Oregon, and California.

PRE-EMPTION LAWS.

The spirit of those enactments, first manifested in 1801, though checked three years afterwards, was developed in sixteen different statutes during the intervening period of forty years, and until 1841, when the prospective pre-emption acts of 1841 and 1843 were incorporated into our land legislation as a permanent policy, those. laws reaching surveyed lands, offered and unoffered; later legislation extending the privilege to unsurveyed lands, with exceptions, from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

Then by the act of 3rd March, 1853, preference rights attach to alter

nate even-numbered sections along the lines of railroads where settled upon and improved prior to final allotment of the granted sections, and to lands once covered by French, Spanish, or other grants declared invalid by the Supreme Court of the United States.

By act of 27th March, 1854, persons are secured in lands withheld for railroads where their settlements were made prior to the withdrawal from market.

The municipal town site law of 1844, the pre-emption provisions in the graduation act of 1854, gave way, the former to the town property and coal land legislation of 1864, 1865, the latter to the homestead statutes of 1862, 1864, 1866-the law of 30th May, 1862, intervening in regard to pre-emption and other important interests.

Property in land is among the first institutions of the State; its visible sign, the transformation it effects on the soil affording notice to others of the use of the tract appropriated, the settler identifying himself with it by the labor of his hands, and individualizing the same, as it were, by his own efforts.

In the progress of the system, which has conferred signal benefits upon settlers and the whole country, it is found that amendatory legislation is desirable to fix certain periods of limitation for consummating interests, and to generalize and give it greater efficiency. To this end, it is suggested that, in the case of settlements existing upon surveyed unoffered land, the settler shall, in all cases, file within three months from date of settlement, and establish his claim and pay up within twelve months from date of settlement; that where actual settlements may hereafter be made upon unsurveyed territory, the claimant, within three months after receipt at the district office of the township plat, shall file declaratory statement, and within twelve months thereafter prove up and pay for the tract; that there shall be a period of limitation fixed, within which appeals may be taken from the decision of the register and receiver and from that of the commissioner, and that where a right is initiated under the pre-emption laws it must in all cases, with limitation as to time, be consummated under those laws.

A legislative requirement to this effect would render each system, preemption and homestead, independent of each other, leaving them to work out their beneficial results without conflict, the settler always having the right, in the first instance, of choosing for himself under which of these systems he will make his settlement.

HOMESTEAD LAW.

The purpose of this measure is to hold out incentives for immigrants to identify themselves with the broad fields of the West, and secure their labor for such a period in the strength of manhood or maturity of life as will insure stability in settlements, development of arable resources, and steady increase of agricultural wealth.

This great original measure should stand unimpaired in its full vigor, and its results will continue to increase the producing power of the country. It has also been suggested whether the privilege should be enlarged by opening up unsurveyed lands to its operation.

We have large quantities of surveyed lands which are undisposed of, it