Two town sites, embracing 960 acres, were entered during the year, and there were 394 sales of town lots. Ten town sites and 343 town lots were approved for patent.

ACCOUNTS.

Seven thousand one hundred and fifty-eight accounts were examined and audited, covering $19,893,985.33; an increase of 2,742 accounts and $10,089,184.44 as compared with the previous year.

The adjusted accounts embrace receipts amounting to $17,767,058.14 and disbursements to the amount of $2,126,927.19.

CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT ON ACCOUNT OF SURVEYS.

The amount covered by certificates of deposit on account of surveys examined and accepted in payment for public lands during the year is $106,163.90.

The amount deposited for surveys under the individual-deposit system was $60,875.22. There were also deposits made by railroad companies, to reimburse the United States the costs of survey of lands selected by them, amounting to $115,097.21.

REPAYMENTS.

Nine hundred and eleven repayment claims for lands erroneously sold, amounting to $53,168.01, were adjusted and approved.

STATE-FUND ACCOUNTS.

The amount reported to the First Comptroller as accruing to the several states entitled by acts of admission into the Union to 5 per cent. of the net proceeds of sales of the public lands is $112,773.25.

MAPS.

The map of the United States has been compiled and 3,500 copies published. Maps of California, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Florida were

revised and published. New maps of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Louisiana have been compiled and traced. New maps of Arkansas, Montana, Arizona, and Indiana are in process of construction. All the new maps were compiled from new projections.

SWAMP LANDS.

The swamp-land selections were 1,201,535.83 acres, making a total of 75,748,385.76 acres claimed by states under the swamp-land grant up to the close of the fiscal year. Lists embracing 171,978.85 acres were approved, making the total thus approved 58,792,965.46 acres. Patents were issued for 341,594.96 acres. The total area patented under the act of 1850, or certified under the act of 1849, is 56,692,520.61 acres. Cash indemnity claims amounting to $77,529.52 were adjusted and allowed, a decrease of $3,161.86. Indemnity lands were patented to the amount of 20,664.85 acres, an increase of 17,423.05 acres. The total cash indemnity allowed since the passage of the indemnity acts is $1,438,473.05, and the total amount of indemnity land patented is 572,390.48 acres.

Five special agents were employed in making examinations in the field of lands claimed under the swamp grant and in representing the Government at the taking of testimony respecting the character of land claimed.

PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS.

Ten private land claims have been patented during the year in Louisiana and Florida. Patents have issued on twenty-nine donation claims in Oregon and New Mexico. Six hundred and forty-one Indian claims have been patented. Nineteen private land-scrip locations were approved for patent and twenty-two New Mexico donation claims have been canceled. Patent has also issued to the city of Fort Smith, Ark., for lands within the late Fort Smith military reservation granted to said city by act of Congress of May 13, 1884.

RAILROAD SELECTIONS.

Five railroad patents were issued during the last fiscal year, embracing 100,823.02 acres; a decrease, as compared with the previous fiscal year, of 1,053,126.98 acres. Lists of selections are on file amounting to 16,571,299.70 acres, an increase of 2,298,241.89 acres.

The number of ex parte claims within railroad limits pending at the close of the fiscal year was 4,540, of which 923 have received some action and 3,617 have not been reached for examination. Ninety-two and seventy-two hundredths miles of land-grant railroad were reported as constructed, making the total reported to June 30, 1886, 17,724.06 miles.

SURVEYS.

The public surveys reported during the year embraced the following

CONDITION OF THE PUBLIC SURVEYS.

The amount of land embraced in surveying returns from Arizona is about 14,000,000 acres, principally in southern and central portions of the territory. The arable lands are in numerous small but fertile valleys, the possession of which, including the sources of water supply, generally obtained through "mill-site" locations and "desert-land” entries, gives control of the remainder of the country. Cattle corporations have within the past few years entered the territory in large numbers, and complaint is made that the native grasses are being trampled out, and that the country must, as a result of such occupation, inevitably become a desert waste. Settlers and small ranchmen cannot compete with organized companies, and the former are compelled to vacate in the presence of the latter. The monopoly of water is protected by territorial laws alleged to have been passed in the interest of these companies and for speculative purposes. This situation is inimical to the settlement of the country. About 12,000,000 acres of unsurveyed lands are embraced in Indian reservations, and thus, at present, are preserved from spoliation.

The State of California contains an estimated area of 100,000,000 acres, of which 71,000,000 acres have been returned as surveyed. The unsurveyed area is of a mountainous character.

About 58,000,000 acres have been nominally surveyed in Colorado, leaving about 9,000,000 acres unsurveyed, chiefly in the mountainous part of the state. The eastern portion, known as the "plains," which is largely dominated by cattle corporations, was returned as surveyed several years since; but no monuments exist, and there are no means of identifying the subdivisions of sections, or even the locality of townships. Either the surveys were never executed, except on paper, or they were prematurely made in the absence of settlement, and the corners have been destroyed by range cattle and other causes. The surveyor-general states that the lack of corners has not heretofore been noticed, because the land was used only for grazing, but that settlers are now coming in who claim that agricultural pursuits can be followed without irrigation; that the rainfall is ample to secure abundant crops on the

rich soil, but complain of the want of monuments of any kind to identify the land they wish to enter. Serious trouble is likely to arise unless an actual survey of the lands shall be made, and it is of the utmost importance that prompt steps should be taken to fully ascertain the condition of the public surveys in that part of the state. It is impossible to do this, or to make any actual surveys, or to obtain evidence on which the bondsmen of delinquent or fraudulent surveyors can be proceeded against, in the absence of available appropriations.

The surveyor-general recommends the abandonment of the rectangular system of surveys in purely mining districts and the adoption instead of Hayden's triangulation as a basis, continuing and bringing that system down so as to establish permanent and reliable triangulation monuments, available as a basis for locating every mining survey. He adds that the present so-called monuments of the rectangular surveys are so notoriously unreliable and unstable as to serve no other purpose than confusion, and that this is in large part owing to the rough nature of the country, which renders rectangular surveys and the setting of corners matters of physical impossibility.

In Dakota the eastern half of the territory has been surveyed, except a portion along the international boundary line in the Turtle Mountain region. The surveyed area of the territory is about 47,000,000 acres, leaving about 49,000,000 acres unsurveyed, chiefly west of the Missouri River, and embracing the region known as "bad lands." Referring to these lands the surveyor-general says: "The topography of the country is exceedingly peculiar. The elevation is not above that of the adjacent prairie, but deep declivities and irregular indentations of the surface abound throughout, giving the appearance that the country at some former period had been underlaid with large deposits of mineral, which, being consumed or decomposed, permitted the surface to fall into irregular heaps and chasms, and creating precipices almost insurmountable. Interspersed throughout the bad lands country are numerous tracts of land where the surface has not been disturbed, varying in size from one to five or more sections. The surface of these detached tracts is represented to be uniformly level, and the lands arable and productive." In Florida the area surveyed is 30,678,663 acres; area remaining unsurveyed, 7,252,857 acres.

The unsurveyed lands are situated principally in the vicinity of the Everglades and south and west of the Big Cypress Swamp, and extend to Cape Sable, in the "Ten Thousand Islands," where settlements exist, which are located on keys near the coast, mostly along creeks, which come down from the mainland. These strips of alluvial land are of the highest fertility. The extension of the public surveys can be made only by triangulation, the coast line being covered by man. groves and dense undergrowth. The lands in the Everglades, when surveyed, would probably be claimed by the state under the swamp.

land grant. Very little reliable information is possessed regarding the character of lands in that locality.

In Idaho the total area reported as surveyed to June 30, 1886, is. 10,256,409 acres ; estimated area remaining unsurveyed, 44,971,751 acres. The surveyor-general's reports for the past five years contain no data relative to the class and character of the unsurveyed land.

The western slopes of the Bitter Root and Cœur d'Alène Mountains, which form the eastern boundary of the territory, are covered with dense and valuable forests of timber, which are being extensively depredated upon. The ridges of the Rocky Mountains, and the extreme eastern development of the Blue Mountains of Oregon on the west, are less heavily timbered. The great central region occupied by the Salmon River Mountains is unexplored. Extensive plains extend south and southeast from the Salmon River Mountains, comprising about one-third of the territory, which are believed to be largely used as cattle ranges. The surveyor-general of Louisiana, in his annual report, referring to the early surveys made in that state and the necessity for resurveys, says: "The early public-land surveys here were made imperfectly, and lines and corners badly established, at rates of compensation too low to secure the most ordinary results, and time, inundations, fires, and other agencies have very largely obliterated all trace of them on the ground. In the prairie regions the evils are magnified. Fifty years ago the original lines and corners were generally obliterated and could only be approximately re-established by the few intersections with streams and other natural objects noted by the early surveyors, or an occasional settler who had perpetuated his lines and corners. Fortunately, most of this prairie region, now so valuable and so rapidly filling up with settlers, was resurveyed before the war, and within the last fifteen years, and but little of it remains now to be done."

He also adds: "It has been found that nearly all the depredations on the public timber have been carried on where the evidences of the old surveys have disappeared from the ground, and when, therefore, the trespassers, after having some kind of right founded in old claims, or some species of entries or homesteads incapable of identification, assume a license to cut everywhere. Such cases have never in any instance, so far as my information extends, been successfully prosecuted by the Government, and in the nature of things cannot be unless the old surveys are restored and the lands trespassed upon thus rendered capable of identification and description. The office is in possession of applications for such resurveys in several townships in those districts, submitted by the special agent of the department for the suppression of timber depredations in the state."

The surveyor-general of Minnesota reports a surveyed area of 42,831,887 acres up to June 30, 1886, leaving an estimated area of land surface remaining unsurveyed of 182 townships (7,400,000 acres), inclusive of the Red Lake Indian reservation, which contains about 3,000,000 acres.