area to be 24,930.68 acres. Osage lands, acquired by treaty with the Indians September 29, 1865, being in the southern part of Kansas, embraces 4,041,937 acres-survey completed. Report made of the proceedings ordered in view of the joint resolution approved April 10, 1869. Thirtieth. Patents in the aggregate have been issued by the General Land Office to individual Indian reservees for nearly three million acres, under treaty with the Shawnees, Kickapoos, Ottawas, Senecas, Kaskaskias, Peorias, Piankeshaws, Weas, Yanktons, Wyandotts, Sacs and Foxes, Chippewas, Stockbridges, Winnebagoes, Delawares, Omahas, Iowas, Kansas, Poncas, Pawnees, Pottawatomies, Miamis, New York Indians, Chocktaws, Creeks, Osages, Otoes, Cherokees, Quapaws, and mixed bloods. Thirty-first. Individual titles derived from foreign governments prior to the acquisition by treaty of certain territories. The policy of the United States has been the most liberal in this respect. Such rights have been sacredly protected by this government, not only in regard to titles in form, but even including claims not resting on written title, where continuous actual settlement existed prior to change of government. The equitable rulings are given of our judicial tribunals in this respect, expansive enough to embrace every species of honest title. Thirty-second. Report given of the geological and mineral interests of the United States, values indicated, and immense wealth of the republic shown in this respect. Thirty-third. The proceedings indicated by which claimants may obtain mining titles under the acts of Congress of July 20, 1866; all the steps to be taken in the consideration of such interests are plainly shown. Thirty-fourth. The railway system of the United States described; its inception, progress, and expansion, with results, present and anticipated, to the civilization and prosperity of the American people. Full details given. Thirty-fifth. Classification of the several States and Territories according to their geographical position and special adaptability to staple prod ucts. First division.-Region of the Gulf States, specially adapted to the culture of cotton, sugar, rice and semi-tropical fruits, in addition to the cereals, esculents, and fruits of other sections, embracing the public land States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Arkansas. Details given in regard to said States, quantity of public land undiposed of in each, with incidental remarks in regard to adjoining States not in the public domain. Second division.-Region of cereals, esculents, fruits, and other products indigenous to the temperate zone. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, on the east side of the Mississippi River; Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, west of that river. Details presented as to area, resources of each of these divisions, the quantity of land there undisposed of being shown. Third division. Mineral, grazing, and vine-growing region, embracing New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Similar particulars to those above indicated being given in regard to each of them. Fourth division.-Agricultural and mineral region of the Pacific coast, consisting of California, Oregon, Washington Territory, and Alaska; area, resources, and progressive development of each indicated. RESULTS OF THE PUBLIC-LAND SYSTEM, AND FACTS PRESENTED AS TO OUR TRADE. The annual report is accompanied by reports of surveyors general of the field operations. Maps of the public-land States and Territories have been prepared; also connected map of the United States, showing the extent of public surveys, localities of land offices, and surveyor generals' offices, railroads, and other topographical characteristics of interest, and map of the world on Mercator's projection, indicating routes of the commerce of the globe. There is also with the report a tabular statement, showing the public lands sold, entered under the homestead laws, and located with agricultural college scrip; the cash, bounty-land scrip, and agricultural college commissions; homestead payments, and commissions for the first half of the fiscal year; also a statement showing like particulars for the second half of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869. Summary for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, showing the number of acres disposed of for cash, and various other heads. Statements showing the quantity of swamp selections, for the year ending June 30, 1869, for the several States, under the acts of 1849, 1850, and 1860; also, statements showing the quantity approved and the quantity patented to the several States, for the same period, under said acts, with the quantity certified to Louisiana under the act of 1849. Statement of selections, by several States, under the internal improvement grant of 1841, up to the 30th of June, 1869. Exhibit of bounty-land business under acts of 1847, 1850, 1852, and 1855, up to the 30th of June, 1869. Statement showing the selections, by certain States, of land within their own limits, under agricultural and mechanic acts of 1862, 1864, and 1866; also the locations made with scrip under said acts. Statement exhibiting land concessions, by act of Congress, for railroad and wagon-road purposes, from the year 1850 to June 30, 1869. Statement exhibiting land concessions, by act of Congress, to States, for canal purposes, from the year 1827 to June 30, 1869. General tabular statement, showing the area of the several States and Territories containing public lands, the quantity of lands disposed of, by sale or otherwise, in each, up to the 30th of June, 1869, and the quantity of land remaining unsold and unappropriated at that date in the several States and Territories. Historical and statistical table of the United States of North America. Estimate of the expenses for this office, for the district land offices, and for the surveying department, for the year ending June 30, 1871. A paper presenting the Commissioner's views as to the relative powers of the Executive and judiciary in regard to issues in the administration of the public lands. Respectfully submitted. JOS. S. WILSON, Commissioner. Hon. J. D. Cox, Secretary of the Interior. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, General Land Office, November 1, 1869. SIR: The administration of the public-land system during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, has been extended to all the public-land States and Territories of the republic except Alaska and Wyoming, in which two Territories that system has not yet been inaugurated, no authority of law having yet been conferred on the subject. Operations pursuant to land legislation have been conducted under the direction of two classes of functionaries: first, surveyors general, aided by corps of deputies of professional skill in fifteen surveying districts; second, by registers and receivers in seventy-three land districts. To the former class of officials is intrusted the extension of the public surveys over the entire area of the public domain. In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Iowa, the entire surveying service has been completed. Accordingly the records of former surveyors general have been placed in the archives of the aforesaid States, respectively. Pursuant to acts of Congress approved June 12, 1840, and January 22, 1853, (Statutes, vol. 5, page 384, vol. 10, page 152,) surveyors general are still under appointment in the States of Oregon, California, Nevada, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Florida, and in the Territories of Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Washington, Arizona being attached to the surveying district of California. In sev eral of these departments the work has been nearly completed. During the past fiscal year surveys have been extended over 10,822,812 acres. To the second class of public officers referred to is committed the immediate disposal of the public lands, after survey, under the various enactments of Congress. The policy of the government has always contemplated a rapid transfer of its proprietary title to private ownership; each successive phase of our national development giving rise to an increased liberality in the execution of this high trust, necessarily enlarging the details of the system. The variety of the methods adopted from time to time for the disposal of the national territory is partially illustrated in the following statement of the public lands disposed of during the year ending June 30, 1869: Cash sales, including a small amount of military scrip... Certified to railways and wagon roads, under various acts Acres approved to States as swamp land, under act of September 28, 1850, 451,295.30, and selected as indemnity for lands in place, covered by adverse rights, 4,473.19; total. Locations of Indian scrip. Aggregate disposal during the year....... Acres. 2, 899, 544. 30 449, 780.00 2, 737, 365. 05 352, 664. 86 746, 769. 51 455, 768. 49 24, 259. 76 7,666, 151. 97 Showing an increase, as compared with the fiscal year next preceding, of over one million acres. The cash receipts during the same period for ordinary sales and preemptions, including a small quantity of military scrip received as money; for the $5 and $10 homestead payments; for commissions on homesteads; for fees in the location of agricultural college scrip; for same in the location of military warrants; for fees in pre-emption cases, on donations on railroad selections, and on certified transcripts, under the acts of 1861 and 1864, make an aggregate received during the year terminating the 30th of June last, of $4,472,886 28, an increase over the year preceding of $2,840,140 38. From the returns, so far as received, it is estimated that for the quarter ending 30th September, 1869, there have been taken by cash sales, bounty-land locations, homestead entries, and agricultural college scrip, about one million seven hundred thousand acres, and that the cash receipts for that quarter for sales and warrant fees compare well, and reach in the aggregate nearly a million dollars. The locations of military bounty-land warrants and of agricultural college scrip during the aforsaid fiscal year ending June 30, 1859, exhibit a decrease as compared with the year preceding, while the other items present a marked advance, especially the homestead entries and cash sales, the latter embracing more than three times the quantity sold during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, and the total quantity disposed of is greater than any previous fiscal year since 1860. From the data above presented it is evident that American civilization is expanding at an accelerating ratio over the continent. The very large advance in the homestead, pre-emption entries, cash sales, and military bounty-land warrant locations indicates a gratifying increase in the number of freeholds, being mostly appropriated by actual settlers of small farms, generally not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres each. The land concessions under grants for railroads, so far as it is possible to gather from public information, exhibit a tendency also to subdivision of proprietorship. The experience of the world has shown that such tendencies are in the direction of a normal civilization, by enlarging the number of persons having a landed interest in the preservation of social order. Temporary causes, it is true, have, during the last three years, stimulated the westward movement of our population, as shown by the increased annual appropriation of the public domain by private parties. Inactivity of general business, and partial depression in several branches of manufacturing industry in the older States, have made available a considerable amount of capital and labor for reinvestment in the younger landed States and in the Territories. The ultimate result, however, cannot fail to be beneficial. In the first place, individuals are induced to improve their circumstances by immigration to the younger communities of the West; and, secondly, the public interests of the nation, indeed of mankind, are materially advanced by widening the area of civilization, and reducing a larger proportion of the earth's surface to its beneficent reign. The development of civilization on this continent is necessarily freed from most of those errors and false principles which crippled its early experimental stage in the Old World. No historic prescription here sanctifies hoary abuses or protects the hereditary monopolies of feudalism. American society is professedly founded upon the idea of individual freedom, which has been realized in a remarkable degree. A clear field is here presented for the development of a social order which does not sacrifice individual welfare. The systematic reproduction of immense accumulations of manufac-. turing industry in localities distant from the sphere of production of raw material would be an error on this continent, which happily the extent of our unoccupied territory so far renders impossible. With nearly one thousand five hundred million acres of unsettled public land, we are in no immediate danger of a permanent localization of popula tion. Poverty and misfortune, if associated with energy and intelli gence, may still find an inexpressible relief in immigration to the rich domains of the Union. The policy of our government in favoring the appropriation of the public lands by actual settlers in small tracts tends to the diffusion of proprietary right in the soil, and by consequence increases the stability of the social system in the rising communities of the West. The noblest result of that policy, however, is found in its extension of the principle of social equality. From such a social organism we may hope that on the removal of the present safeguard of unoccupied public land, the evil reactionary principles that have marred European civilization will be finally eliminated. The rapid extension of our western settlements is largely due also to the influx of foreign immigration. The annual accessions from this source show a decided increase to our population. Though partially arrested by the late civil war, the return of peace has expanded this popular movement to larger proportions than ever. From correspondence on file in this office it appears that a more than usual proportion of the intelligent and moneyed classes of Europe have become interested in our extraordinary resources. This improved character of foreign immigration, there is reason to believe, is mainly due to the distribution, at the Paris Exposition of 1867, of brief reports on the resources of the United States, and by the circulation, by the State Department, of official information on the subject throughout Europe. America is no longer looked upon in those countries as merely a refuge for oppressed labor. It is now regarded as a field of commercial and industrial enterprise, promising nobler results than any combination of capital and labor has ever realized. We now see an increasing annual import of capital and skilled labor, enabling us to give a more varied and remunerative character to our industry by engaging in the higher and more elaborate processes of art. This enlargement of the scope of our home activity will ultimately result in benefits which, as yet, we are entirely unable to appreciate. The policy of admitting foreigners to the rights and privileges of American citizens is no longer problematical. It has been tested by an experience of more than three-quarters of a century. We are now prepared for at least an approximation to the results of that policy by a series of census enumerations from 1790 to 1860, bringing the elements of the problem within easy range. As a result of the inquiry, we cannot fail to be impressed with the admirable statesmanship of the founders of this republic in permanently engrafting this beneficent feature upon our national system. To comprehend the influence of foreign immigration in the wonderful growth of our natural resources, let us suppose that, at the close of the Revolution, the American statesmen and people, under the narrow vindictive prejudices which characterize Asiatic policy, had excluded all foreigners from our shores; our increase of population would then be but the excess of births over deaths. An able statistician in the public press has observed that, instead of the aggregate of 31,443,321, the census of 1860 would have shown not more than 22,000,000, or about the aggregate of our population in 1848. Nearly 10,000,000 of our population, then, is due to the influx of foreigners. The statistics of the Treasury Department show that the movement of our foreign commerce presents most remarkable advances coincident with the augmentation of foreign immigration. Our annual aggregates of tonnage and resources indicate similar expansions. The following |