Hon. H. H. Barney, in his first annual report, presented a synopsis on this subject, which is no less minute than instructive. In what follows, an acknowledgment of indebtedness to his sketch of the irreducible funds of the States, is freely tendered.

By act of March 2, 1807, Congress appropriated eighteen quarter townships, and three sections, to be selected by lot, from lands lying between the United States Military Tract and the Western Reserve, for the use of schools in the Virginia Military Reservation-thus removing a restriction contained in the act of 1803, which confined their selection to the Virginia Military District. In return, the State of Ohio released to the United States the thirty-sixth part of the tract first designated, accepting the above grant in lieu thereof. It may be well to add that the Virginia Military District, (or the tract between the Scioto and Little Miami, reserved by Virginia from her cession of the territory north-west of the Ohio river, for the satisfaction of land bounties issued to her troops upon Continental establishment,) may be traced upon a township map of Ohio, as follows: It includes the whole of Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Highland, Madison, and Union Counties; half of Hardin, or Taylorsville, Hale, and Dodley townships, and a large portion of Roundhead; part of a single township (Goshen) in Auglaize; one half of Logan, or Rush Creek, Bokengehelas Creek, Jefferson, Perry, Zane, and Goshen townships, with large fractions of McArthur, Monroe, and Lake, and a smaller portion of Stokes; one quarter of Champaign, or Wayne, Rush, and Goshen townships, with a large part of Union, and a less fraction of Salem; the north-east and south-east extremities of Clark, being the eastern portions of Pleasant and Harmony, and the southern portions of Madison and Greene townships; three-fourths of Greene, or all of the county except Bath and Beaver's Creek townships, and those portions of Miami and Xenia which lie west of the Little Miami river; two-fifths of Warren, or Hamilton, Salem, Washington, and part of Wayne townships; a single township, (Anderson,) at

the south-east angle of Hamilton; two-fifths of Scioto, namely: Nile, Washington, Union, Brush Creek, and Morgan townships; three-fifths of Pike, namely: Camp Creek, Sunfish, Mifflin, Perry, Preble, Benton, Peepee, and the west half of Jackson townships; two-thirds of Ross, namely: Franklin, Huntington, Paxton, Scioto, Twin, Paint, Buckskin, Concord, Union, and Deerfield townships; two-thirds of Pickaway, namely: Wayne, Deer Creek, Perry, Jackson, Monroe, Muhlenberg, Darby, and Scioto; seven of the nineteen townships of Franklin, namely: Jackson, Pleasant, Prairie, Franklin, Norwich, Brown, and Washington; a narrow belt along the west line of Delaware, to-wit: the townships of Thompson and Scioto, and a fraction of Concord; and, finally, the two south-western townships of Marion, namely: Green Camp and Bowling Green-to the place of beginning, "in a large, wet prairie, or swamp," whence flow, in opposite directions, the Scioto and Great Miami toward the Gulf of Mexico, and the Auglaize northwardly to its junction with the Maumee or Miami of Lake Erie. The sale of the school lands allotted to the inhabitants of the Virginia Military District, occurred in pursuance of acts passed by the General Assembly, in 1827 and 1828.

The United States Military District, so frequently mentioned in the present connection, was appropriated, by an act of Congress, in 1796, to satisfy the land bounties granted by the Continental Congress to the officers and soldiers of the revolution. It was bounded as follows: "Beginning at the north-west corner of the original seven ranges of townships,*

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* The ordinance of the Continental Congress which first provided for the disposition of lands north-west of the river Ohio, passed May 20, 1785, resulted in the survey of the Seven Ranges, which are bounded on the north by a line drawn due west from the Pennsylvania State line, where it crosses the Ohio river, for the distance of forty-two miles; thence south to the Ohio river at the south-east corner of Marietta township, and thence up the river to the place of beginning. This tract comprises all of Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont, and Monroe counties, most of Carroll, and small portions of Columbia, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington, along their eastern boundaries.

and running thence fifty miles due south, along the western boundaries of the said range; thence due west, with [to?] the main branch of the Scioto river; thence up the main branch of the said river, to the place where the Indian boundary line crosses the same; thence along the said boundary line, to the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river, at the crossing place above Fort Laurens; thence up said river, to a point where a line run due west from the place of beginning, will intersect the said river; thence along the said line to place of beginning." The language here quoted, is from the act of June 1, 1796, and is, geographically, inaccurate; for when the old Greenville line (the Indian boundary mentioned) reaches the site of Fort Laurens, (near the villages of Calcutta, on the southern border of Stark, and of Bolivar, in Tuscarawas counties,) there is no need of ascending the Muskingum to reach a point due west from the place of beginning. A few miles from the site of Fort Laurens, directly east, connects with the north-east corner of the seventh range of townships. The act further directed this tract to be surveyed into townships of five miles square; and these were afterward surveyed into quarter townships of two and a half miles square, containing 4,000 acres each. Consequently, the grant to the United States Military District of eighteen of these quarter townships, contained in the act of 1803, amounted to 72,000 acres, or about one-thirty-fourth of the whole extent of the District. The appropriation to the Connecticut Reserve, by the same act, of fourteen quarter townships, or 56,000 acres, was, of course, inadequate; while the subsequent allotment of eighteen quarter townships, and three sections within this tract, for the benefit of the Virginia Military District, may have amounted, together with other locations made between the Scioto and Little Miami, from 1803 to 1807, to the proportion of one-thirty-sixth of the lands in the latter tract.

The school lands originally granted to the United States Military District, remained under lease until 1827-8, when the inhabitants were authorized to vote their consent to sell

them, which was done, and their proceeds now constitute a portion of the irreducible fund. The district entitled to a uniform division of their yearly income, may thus be designated on the map of Ohio: The whole of Coshocton county, and the following fractions, greater or less, of the adjacent counties of Tuscarawas, all except most of Warren and Union, and smaller portions of Will and Rush townships; of Guernsey, all except Londonderry and Oxford on the eastern, and Spencer on the southern border; of Noble, sections 10, 20, 21, and 22, in township one, range one, west of the seven ranges; of Muskingum, whatever lies north of the latitude of Zanesville, namely: Union, Perry, Washington, Falls, Hopewell, Highland, Salem, Muskingum, Licking, Monroe, Adams, Madison, Jefferson, and Jackson; of Holmes, all but Washington and Ripley, and portions of Prairie, Salt Creek, Paint, Knox, and Monroe; of Licking, all but Etna and Bowling Green, and parts of Union and Licking, which constitute its southern border; of Knox, all but a narrow wedge extending from west to east, along the northern line of Middlebury and Berlin; about half of Morrow, namely: Chester, Bloomfield, Harmony, Bennington, Penn, Lincoln, Westfield, and part of Franklin townships; most of Delaware, all except the narrow belt west of the Scioto; and of Franklin, the north-eastern townships of Jefferson, Mifflin, Clinton, Plain, Blendon, Sharon, and Perry.

The donation of 56,000 acres, for the use of schools on the Western Reserve, was probably one-thirty-sixth of the land east of the Cuyahoga river; but when, in 1805, the Indian title was extinguished by the treaty of "Fort Industry, on the Miami of the Lake," east of the meridian line drawn from Lake Erie along the western limit of the Connecticut Reserve, and thence south to the Greenville line, it became the duty of Congress to furnish a due proportion of school land for the remainder of the Reserve, which was estimated by a memorial of the Ohio Legislature, dated January 21, 1827, to be 43,000 acres. It was not, however, until June 19, 1834, that an act of Congress was passed, directing the

President of the United States to reserve from sale, public lands in Ohio, sufficient, in addition to the grant of 1803, to constitute one-thirty-sixth of the area of the Western Reserve, for the use of schools. Under this act, it was ascertained that the State of Ohio became entitled to 37,758 acres, most of which was located in the counties of Defiance, Henry, Williams, Paulding, Vanwert, and Putnam; in 1848, the people of the Western Reserve, by a vote authorized by the General Assembly, decided in favor of their sale; in 1850, provision was made for their appraisement and sale, and the lands in question are now generally disposed of. An income of six per cent. upon their net proceeds, is paid to the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Cuyahoga, Medina, Lorain, Huron, and Erie; to ten townships of Mahoning, namely: Berlin, Ellsworth, Canfield, Boardman, Poland, Milton, Jackson, Austintown, Youngstown, and Coitsville; to all of Summit, except Franklin and Greene townships; to three townships of Ashland, namely: Ruggles, Troy, and Sullivan; and the eastern extremity of Ottawa, consisting of Danbury township, and a portion of the Bass islands in Lake Erie.

The Moravian school fund also requires some explanation. Congress, at an early day, granted three tracts of 4,000 acres each, to the Society of United Brethren, for propagating the Gospel among the heathen, in trust for the Christian Indians of the Muskingum. These tracts included the missionary stations of Schoenbrunn, Gnattenhutten, and Salem, in Tuscarawas county, and were re-conveyed in 1824, to the United States, in consideration of certain provisions for the benefit of the Society, and the remnant of Indians then surviving. By an act of Congress, passed the same year, the Secretary of the Treasury was allowed to set apart, from the sale of these lands, one lot, not exceeding one-thirty-sixth part of each tract, the title being vested in the Legislature of Ohio, in trust for the use of schools, in the same manner that other lands have been granted for that purpose.

By a communication from Hon. F. M. Wright, the Auditor