Mr. Scott's amendment was lost.
Tuesday, December 28.
Land Offices.
The House then went again into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, Mr. Boudinot in the chair. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject of a Land Office being under consideration.
Mr. Scott said, he was ready to give some information relative to the extent of the seven ranges. He produced a map of them, from which it appeared that they included thirty-five lots, each six miles square. The tract is in the shape of a triangle, of which one leg measured about sixty, and the other forty-two—in all, about twelve hundred square miles. His amendment was agreed to.
The next article was agreed to, with a trifling amendment, without debate.
Then the following was read:
"That the price shall be thirty cents per acre, to be paid either in gold or silver, or public securities, computing those which shall bear an immediate interest of six per cent. as at par with gold and silver, and those which shall bear a future or less interest, if any there be, at a proportional value."
Mr. Scott moved that thirty cents should be struck out.
Mr. Sherman was in favor of inserting fifty cents per acre. He said there was every reasonable probability the lands would be worth that sum in a few years.