By Capt. A. S. CROWNINSHIELD: BOWDITCH'S Navigator-NICHOLAS IGNATIUS CLARKIN. Second best navigator. LUCE's Seamanship-CHARLES PAUL FERRERO. Best seaman. By School Ship St. Mary's: BOWDITCH'S Navigator-WILLIAM SEATON, Jr. Best at heaving lead. Silver Watch-Alfred Forbes LITTLE. Best marlinspike speci men. Silver Watch—{ JAMES THOMAS PHILLIPS. By Mr. PAUL HOFFMAN : Gold Medal-EDWARD LIVERMORE. Largest assortment of knots and splices. Out of Surplus Clothing Fund: $40 each-EDWARD LIVERMORE, WILLIAM SEATON, Jr., CHARLES PAUL FERRERO, NICHOLAS INGNATIUS CLARKIN, RUFUS SHERWOOD CASE. Best general average. By the Crew of St. Mary's: $18-MALCOLM CORNER. For obedience and good behavior. Mr. JESUP afterwards addressed a few appropriate remarks to the graduates, and was followed by Mr. FREDERICK W. DEVOE and Mr. ADOLPH L. SANGER, of the Board of Education. Your Council take this opportunity to call attention to the following: First. It is very desirable that greater publicity should be given to the objects of the Nautical School, that a larger number of boys may thereby be induced to seek admission. The advantages of free instruction and free living, if more widely known, would increase the attendance to the full capacity of the ship. Second. Many of the young men who graduate find great difficulty in procuring places on board of American ships. The graduates of the St. Mary's are at least good ordinary seamen, many of them good seamen, and most of them fairly good navigators. Thus, activity and intelligence, as a rule, should be considered quite an equivalent to what they may be deficient in physical strength. It is, therefore, hoped that ship-owners and shipmasters will find the graduates of the St. Mary's employment, for without this incentive. the young men will lose interest in the instruction they have received, and the School continue to struggle against an additional obstacle, which could be readily removed by the co-operation of that class of business men who should aid to make it a success. The Council calls attention to the recommendation made in their last report that provision be made for a voyage during the winter months to the West Indies, instead of keeping the ship at the wharf during the winter. The additional expense would be very little more than the wear of the sails and rigging, and would be of great benefit to the scholars in practical sea service. The following are the officers of the School: Superintendent, Com. A. S. CROWNINSHIELD, U. S. N. Surgeon, HERVEY W. WHITAKER, P. A. Surgeon, U. S. N. The report was, on motion, unanimously adopted, and a copy was ordered to be sent to the Hon. A. S. DRAPER, Superintendent of Public Instruction at Albany. The President stated that Major J. W. POWELL, Director of the United States Geological Survey, was present by invitation, and would address the Chamber on the redemption of the arid lands of the United States for agriculture. Major POWELL was thereupon introduced, and delivered the following address on the subject: ADDRESS BY MAJOR J. W. POWELL. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE : About one-half of the lands of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, are arid. Can they and ought they to be redeemed by irrigation? And how can it be done? I esteem it a great honor to have been invited to answer the questions to this great body of men who, at the capital of commerce, so largely control the business enterprises of America. All the farms, all the mines, all the factories, all the railroads, all the steamboat lines, all the marts of exchange, and all the financial institutions of the country are tributary to your enterprises, and the movements of this Chamber thrill through the land to every city, hamlet and fireside. It is thus that in speaking to you I speak to all the people of the nation. Deeply sensible of the magnitude of this responsibility, I shall endeavor to outline to you a movement the inauguration of which has not failed to reach your ears. The speaker then described the origin of agriculture in Egypt, Assyria, India, China and other regions of the old world. Then he explained the origin of agriculture in Mexico, Central America and Peru, showing that agriculture began by irrigation in the old world and in the new alike where the country was arid, and where artificial irrigation was necessary. Then he explained how it spread into the humid lands of Western Europe when metallurgical processes had been discovered, and men were armed with tools of bronze and iron. The methods of agriculture in the United States were derived from those of Western Europe, as the people on coming to the eastern shore of this country found a humid climate like that to which they were accustomed. But in the western half of the United States, where great development of agriculture is in progress, the region is arid, and agriculture depends upon irrigation, and we have to return to the methods first devised in Egypt and Assyria. Then he discussed at length the problem of irrigation by the use of rivers and the storage of waters, and in the same connection discussed the problem of preserving and utilizing the forests that grow on the mountains and high plateaus, and the great pasturage industries of the West, and the mines of gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, coal, petroleum and gas. The plan to be presented for your consideration directly affects all the industries of agriculture, forestry, pasturage, mining and manufacturing, and indirectly all other industries and enterprises. Let this problem be briefly reviewed: First. The capital to redeem by irrigation one hundred million acres of land is to be obtained, and one thousand million dollars are necessary. Second. These lands are to be distributed to the people, and as yet we have no proper system of land laws by which it can be done. Third. The waters of the land must be divided among the States, and yet there is no law for it, and the States are now in conflict. Fourth. The waters are to be divided among the people, so that cach man may have the amount necessary to fertilize his farm, and cach hamlet, town and city, the amount necessary for domestic purposes, that every thirsty garden may quaff from the crystal waters that come from the mountains. Fifth. The great forests that clothe the hills, plateaus and mountains with verdure must be protected from devastation by fire and preserved for the use of man, that farms may be protected and homes built, and that all this wealth of forestry, these unborn cottages and schoolhouses, may be distributed among the people. Sixth. The grasses that are to feed the flocks and herds must be protected and utilized. Seventh. The great mineral deposits, the fuel of the future, the iron for the railroads, and the gold and silver for our money, must be kept ready to the hand of industry and the brain of enterprise. Eighth. The powers for the factories of that great land are to be created and utilized, that the hum of busy machinery may echo among the rocks of the mountains, the symphonic music of industry. A thousand millions of money must be used; who shall furnish it? Great and many industries are to be established; who shall control them? Millions of men are to labor; who shall employ them? This is a great nation; the Government is powerful; shall it engage in this work? So dreamers may dream, and so ambition may dictate, but, in the name of the men who labor, I demand that the laborers shall employ themselves; that the enterprises shall be controlled by the men who have the genius to organize, and whose homes are in the lands developed, and that the money shall be furnished by the people; and I say to the Government, hands off! Furnish the people with institutions of justice, and let them do the work for themselves. The solution to be propounded, then, is one of institutions to be organized for the establishment of justice, not of appropriations to be made and offices to be created by the Govern ment. In a group of mountains a small river has its source. A dozen or a score of creeks unite to form the trunk. The creeks higher up divide into brooks. All these streams combined form the drainage system of a hydrographic basin, a unit of country well defined in nature, for it is bounded above and on either side by heights of land that rise as crests to part the waters. Thus, hydraulic basin is segregated from hydraulic basin by Nature herself, and the land marks are perpetual. In such a basin of the arid region the irrigable lands lie below, not chiefly by the river's side, but on the mesas and low plains that stretch back towards the mountain-crested rim. Above these lands the pasturage hills and mountains stand, and there the forests and the sources of water supply are found. Such a district of country is a kingdom by itself. The people who live therein are independent in all their industries. Every man is interested in the conservation and management of the water supply, for all the waters are needed within the district. The men who control the farming below must also control the upper regions, where the waters are gathered from the heavens and stored in the reservoirs. Every farm and garden in the valley below is dependent upon each fountain above. All of the lands that lie within the basin above the farming districts are the catchment areas for all the waters poured upon the fields below. The waters that control these works all constitute one system, are dependent one upon the other, and are independent of all other systems. Not a spring or a creek can be touched without affecting the interests of every man who cultivates the soil in the region. All the waters are common property until they reach the main canal, where they are to be divided and distributed among the people. How these waters are to be caught, and the common source of wealth utilized by the individual men interested therein, is a problem for the men of the district to solve, and for them alone. But these same people are also interested in the forests that crown the heights of the hydrographic basin. If they permit the forests to be destroyed, the source of their water supply is injured, and the timber values are wiped out. If they are to be guarded, the people directly interested should perform the task. An army of aliens set to watch the forests would need another army of aliens to watch them, and a forestry organization, under the hands of the General Government, would speedily become a hot-bed of corruption, for it would be impossible to fix responsibility and difficult to secure integrity of administration where ill-defined values in great quantities are involved. Then the pasturage is to be protected. The men who protect these lands for the water they supply to agriculture can best protect the grasses for the summer pasturage of the cattle and horses and sheep that are to be fed on their farms during the months of winter. Again, the men who create water powers by constructing dams and digging canals should be permitted to utilize these powers for themselves, or to use the income from these powers which they themselves create, for the purpose of constructing and maintaining the works necessary to their agriculture. Thus it is that there is a body of inter-dependent and unified interests and values, all collected in one hydrographic basin, and all segregated by well-defined boundary lines from the rest of the world. The people in such a district have common interests, common rights and common duties, and must necessarily work together for common purposes. Let such a people organize, under National and State laws, a great irrigation district, including an entire hydrographic basin, and let them make their own laws for the division of the waters, for the protection and use of the forests, for the protection of the pasturage on the hills, and for the use of the powers. This, then, is the proposition I make : That the entire arid region be organized into natural hydrographic districts, each one to be a kingdom within itself for the purpose of controlling and using the great values which have been pointed out. There are some great rivers where the larger trunks would have to be divided into two or more districts, but the great majority would be of the character described. Each such community should possess its own irrigation works; it would have to erect diverting dams, dig canals and construct reservoirs, and such works would have to be maintained from year to year. The plan is to establish local self-government by hydrographic basins, and each basin may well constitute a great county. Let us consider next the part which should be taken by the local governments, the State governments and the General Government, in the establishment and maintenance of the institutions pointed out. Let there be established in each district a court to adjudicate questions of water rights, timber rights, pasturage rights and power rights, in compliance with the special laws of the community and the more general laws of the State and the nation. Let |