and transportation trains; bere pass the streams of emigration from year to year; in railway estimates it has a prominent figure; in a word, from all the accounts we have of it, we cannot treat as visionary the idea that a strong and prosperous emporium will flourish here, at no distant day-the City of the Delta. Even its agricultural capacity is not to be thought lightly of, according to the opinion of Mr. Bartlett, Boundary Commissioner: "The bottom lands below the junction bear the traces of former cultivation. From the large trees, both erect and fallen, which now cover the bottom, even where the ditches appear, the cultivation, in my opinion, was anterior to the occupation by the Spaniards. I have never seen bottom lands of this character which might be more easily irrigated. The banks of both rivers are here low; and the descent near Fort Yuma would permit the opening of a canal a few miles above, which would irrigate the whole valley." Commercially, it is pointedly described by General W. S. Rosecrans, last month: "Fort Yuma is the actual and natural distributing point for all Arizona and contiguous parts of Utah, Nevada and Mexico. Goods from San Francisco now reach it via Cape San Lucas and the Gulf of California, transhipped in Mexican territory to steamers at the mouth of the Colorado, which carry them to Fort Yuma in from forty-five to fifty-five days from San Francisco. The trade already employs a good line of steamers." California and Arizona can cultivate and maintain a warm friendship and sisterhood, perfectly identified as they are, too, in interests, no mat ter which may own this "oasis in the desert." The better to guarantee this perpetually, it will be well as soon as possible to determine this question, which really is so easy of solution. The annexed letter of Hon. John W. Bost, Surveyor-General of this State, expresses his approval of this bill. In addition to the reasons before mentioned, it would be serviceable in perfecting the general map we need of our State. Incidentally, it would no doubt furnish us much valuable information concerning a region now comparatively unknown. The passage of the bill is hereby recommended, with an amendment, by filling the blank in section seven. Assembly Bill No. 223-An Act to confirm a certain order passed by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco; Also, No. 224-An Act to confirm a certain order passed by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco; Also, No. 312-An Act to provide for the disposition of the pueblo lands of the City and County of San Francisco; Also, No. 461-An Act to provide for the distribution of the public lands of the City and County of San Francisco; Have had the same under advisement, and as they severally relate to the same subject matter, respectfully report the same back with the following suggestions and recommendations, viz: The several bills, though relating to the same subject matter, present two entirely antagonistic objects; Bills Nos. 312 and 461 claiming, upon one theory and assumption, a control and disposition of the property commonly designated as the outside or pueblo lands of San Francisco, whilst Bills Nos. 223 and 224, resting upon a different basis, propose other disposition of the same lands. In considering the subject presented by these bills, your Committee. have had to investigate the nature of public grants and the rights acquired thereby. In such investigation-assuming that San Francisco was a pueblo, as both theories are based upon that assumption-we have necessarily bad to trace the history, as derived from Spanish and Mexican laws, and accept the interpretation of the Courts of the State of California and of the United States, of the condition and rights of pueblos under the laws by which they were created, or under the fostering of which they were erected, existing at the date of the cession of California to the United States by Mexico. A pueblo, under Mexican and Spanish law, was an association by settlement of a small community in the wilderness, upon the public domain of the country, occupying a limited district, for the purpose of mutual protection and convenience, and to encourage which their Governments extended certain privileges and franchises, among which was the occupancy in severalty of small tracts of land of from fifty to one hundred varas each for homesteads or places of business; that immediately around and surrounding which was reserved a narrow space of unoccu |