Public Lands.—The United States own an immense public domain, acquired by treaties with France, Spain, and Mexico, and by compacts with States and Indian tribes. This domain is thus described in the Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, of November 29th, 1860:
'Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625 square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the United States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends from the northern line of Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, reaching to the Atlantic Ocean, northwesterly to the Canada line bordering upon the great Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward to the Pacific Ocean, with Puget's Sound on the north, the Mediterranean Sea of our extreme northwestern possessions.
'It includes fifteen sovereignties, known as the 'Land States,' and an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each equal to the great central land State of Ohio.
'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the Western, Northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is found revealing its wealth.
'Instead of dreary, inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the science of the present age.
'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element, coal, the source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent, not only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of active and constant intercommunication with every part of the republic.'
Kansas having been admitted since the date of this Report, our public domain, thus described officially, now includes the sixteen land States, and all the Territories.
Of this vast region (originally 1,450,000,000 acres), there was surveyed up to September, 1860, 441,067,915 acres, and 394,088,712 acres disposed of by sales, grants, etc., leaving, as the Commissioner states, 'the total area of unsold and unappropriated, of offered and unoffered lands of the public domain, 1,055,911,288 acres.' This is 'land surface,' exclusive of lakes, bays, rivers, etc., 1,055,911,288 acres, or 1,649,861 square miles, and exceeds one half the area of the whole Union. The area of New York, being 47,000 square miles, is less than a thirty-fifth part of our public domain. England[3] (proper) has 50,922 square miles, France 203,736, Prussia 107,921, and Germany 80,620 square miles. The area then of our public domain is more than eight times as large as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more than 200 millions of people.
As England (proper) contained in 1861, 18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled, its population would exceed 606 millions; and it would be 260,497,561, if numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. Its average fertility far exceeds that of Europe, as does also the extent of its mines, especially gold, silver, coal, and iron, with every variety of soil, climate, mineral and agricultural products.
These lands are surveyed at the expense of the Government into townships of six miles square, subdivided into sections, and these into quarter sections (160) acres, set apart for homesteads. Our system of public surveys into squares, by lines running due north and south, east and west, is so simple as to have precluded all disputes as to boundary or title. This domain reaches from the 24th to the 49th parallel, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its isothermes (the lines of equal mean annual temperatures) strike on the north the coast of Norway midway, touch St. Petersburg in Russia, and pass through Manchooria on the coast of Asia, about three degrees south of the mouth of the Amour river. On the south, these isothermes run through Northern Africa, and nearly the centre of Egypt near Thebes, cross Northern Arabia, Persia, Northern Hindostan, and Southern China near Canton.