* Boundaries.-Commencing at 54° 40′ north latitude, ascending Portland Channel to the mountains, following their summits to 141° west longitude; thence north on this line to the Arctic Ocean, forming the eastern boundary. Starting from the Arctic Ocean west, the line descends Behring Strait, between the two islands of Krusenstern and Rotmanoff, to the parallel of 65° 30', and proceeds due north, without limitation, into the same Arctic Ocean. Beginning again at the same initial point, on the parallel of 65° 30', thence in a course southwest, through Behring Strait, between the island of Saint Lawrence and Cape Choukotski, to 172° west longitude, and thence southwesterly, through Behring Sea, between the islands of Alton and Copper, to the meridian of 198° west longitude, leaving the prolonged group of the Aleutian Islands in the possessions Low transferred to the United States, and making the western boundary of our country the dividing line between Asia and America. No census taken. NOTES. about 4,000.000 square miles. The land surface of the United States, 3,580,238 square miles, when increased by the water surface of the great lakes and rivers, gives a total area to the United States of from geographical authorities. The population of the United States, as shown by the ninth census, taken, in accordance with Constitutional requirements, in 1870, was 38,558,371, to which if added the Colorado.- Duly admitted as a State into the Union by proclamation of the President August 1, 1876, (Statutes at Large, pamphlet 1875-'76, page 7.) Indian Territory--This Territory is attached to the western judicial district of Arkansas. (See act of Congress approved June 30, 1834. Statutes at Large, vol. 4, p. 729.) DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, November 1, 1877. J. A. WILLIAMSON, Commissioner. A.-Report of the surveyor general of Louisiana. OFFICE OF THE SURVEYOR GENERAL OF LOUISIANA, SIR: Herewith I have the honor to submit to you my annual report for this surveying district for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1877, with the usual tabular statements of field and office work, to wit: A. Being statement of surveying contracts entered into by the surveyor general of Louisiana on account of appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1874. B. Being statement of surveying contracts entered into by the surveyor general of Louisiana on account of the appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1875. C. Being statement of surveying contracts entered into by the surveyor general of Louisiana on account of appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1876. D. Being statement of surveying contracts entered into by the surveyor general of Louisiana on account of appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1877. E. Being estimate of funds for surveying service in Louisiana, for salary of surveyor general and his clerks, and for contingent expenses in his office for the year ending June 30, 1879. The above estimates and statements show in brief the work of the office in surveying, platting, and returning work in the field for the last four years, and the wants of the public service in this district for the coming fiscal year, and to them I invite your attention. RESTORATION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS TO MARKET. It is a subject of regret that so much delay has occurred in carrying into effect the act of Congress of 22d June, 1876, for the public offerings of land in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. One cause of the delay, as understood in this State, was the want of clerk force in the bureau necessary to prepare the lists of lands to be offered, and the difficulties of preparing accurate lists at all after so many years of interruption to the land system in the South, and the irregularity and carelessness with which the land offices have been conducted since its re-establishment. As all tracts covered by homestead entries must be reserved from public offering, and thereafter from private entry, and as the number of fraudulent or abandoned homestead entries in Louisiana is very large, I have believed it my duty to call your attention to the facts, and to make such suggestions as I think would remedy or lessen the evil, so far, at least, as it affects the pine timber lands in the southwestern district. In my annual report, for 1874, (Bureau Report for 1874, p. 74,) I stated statistically some of the evil results of the homestead system in this State. Obtaining my information from the records of the consolidated land office in this city I showed that of the 4,040 homestead entries then made in this land district there had then ripened into title but 91; that there had been relinquishments in 200 entries, and cancellations in 500 more, and that but a small part of the entries, then seven years old, had been proved up and had received final certificates. The just inference was that about 75 per cent., at least, of all homestead entries in Louisiana had been fraudulently conceived, or had been abandoned. I have not obtained from the register and receiver statistics to date of this report, but I have no reason to believe they would show any improvement as compared with the foregoing. On the contrary, if I may credit the sources of information occasionally open to me, the class of pretended entries has increased, at least upon the valuable timber lands in the southwestern district, which have recently attracted so much attention on account of your efforts to stay the enormous depredations upon them. A great number of persons have affected to believe that after homestead entries, with or without settlement, they were at liberty to cut and remove all the timber from the land, and they have lived up to their faith. Indeed, in Calcasieu Parish this right to strip the timber from homestead lands was so generally conceded, and so respected by all, that it came to be an object of barter and sale, and hundreds of men, mostly poor and ignorant, make no concealment of the sales they have made and prices they have received for the privilege of cutting all valuable pine from their respective tracts. The State has a homestead system similar to and borrowed from the Federal system. And in consequence of the low, flat character of the lands in that part of the State, and the probability that many of the early surveys were made in very wet seasons, many tracts of valuable pine lands have passed to the State under the swamp land act of 1849. These tracts, too, are legitimate prey for the spoiler, and not unfrequently the same persor obtains homestead entries on 160 acres of State land covered with valuable pine, and 160 acres of United States land of the same character, and lives on neither, but perhaps miles away. He then goes to the owners of the mills below him on the stream or streams his homesteads are on or near, obtains his advances in money and provisions, engages to cut and float so many logs, as the case may be, returns to his cabin, cuts and hauls his logs, and when the winter rains swell the streams sufficiently, he starts them afloat, each one with his brand upon it, and at the boonis, many miles below, he gathers up all that come through, usually about 90 per cent., forms raits of them, and then delivers them at the mills from which he received his advances. Since the recent seizures, most of this has been suspended-I fear not discontinued. And it has been brought to my notice by some of my deputies that the class of men who have been checked at it by the presence of your agent and the measures he has taken, are now preparing for future operations by making fraudulent or fictitious homestead entries upon the best timbered lands, hoping thereby to tie them up and keep them out of market till a time shall have arrived more favorable for their purposes. My deputies who have been engaged in that quarter report that few of the tracts covered by homestead entries have settlements upon them or bear any evidences of improvement at all, most of them near the larger streams having been more or less denuded of the pine timber. I have read with pleasure your excellent recommendations in the report of the bureau for 1876, page 8, for the enactment of a law by Congress to enable you to protect the pine-bearing lands of the United States. Such a system as you recommend is so obviously necessary in Louisiana that one would suppose it only needed to be called to the attention of the national legislature to 'secure its prompt adoption. But experience shows that needed reforms are often slow of adoption, and hence I would suggest that before the anticipated public sales take place in this State, some other means be resorted to to enable the government to sell the pine lands. At present the lands which would be purchased for their timber, either at public sale or subsequent private entry, are those within one and two miles of streams or lakes which afford water sufficient for floating purposes; but it is just these lands that the false homestead entries have heretofore been made upon, and will probably continue to be made upon, for the motives I have mentioned. And should the public offerings take place before examinations are effected such lands cannot be offered, of course, and those who honestly seek to purchase and who naturally desire the best lands, will be denied the right in favor of what all men know to be a shallow fraud. I would recommend that as you decide to employ the sum alloted for surveys in Louisana in further resurveys in the pine region of the Calcasien country, the land office here be required to furnish my deputies with abstracts of all homestead entries in their respective townships to be placed under contract, and that each deputy be required to examine each tract sufficiently to enable him to make a sworn report as to the actual condition in which he finds the land. If such report showed nonsettlement or abandonment, the entries could be canceled, or, if you saw proper, the supposed settler could be notified by notice in some newspaper to show cause, by a certain time, why his entry should not be canceled. As to entries in townships not necessary to be resurveyed, or which cannot be put under contract this year, I should be authorized to appoint and send out a deputy in whom I have confidence, furnishing him with the proper abstracts from the local land office, and requiring him to make similar examinations and reports. Such reports would be valuable evidence in the legal proceedings to be had here next winter for the confiscation of the timber seized by your agent in Calcasieu Parish, and which I sunpose are likely to turn upon the fact whether or not the depredations were committed on public or private lands. UNCONFIRMED PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS IN LOUISIANA. This subject still attracts attention, and I think it my duty again to briefly allude to it, in order that through you Congress may be informed correctly upon the subject. In this connection I cannot do better than recall your attention to what I had the honor to lay before you in my report for 1874, published in the bureau report for that year, pages 76, 77, 78, and 79. Nothing has occurred to induce me to modify or abandon any of the reasons then advanced in favor of a general act of Congress which, proprio vigore, would forever quiet this class of claims and relieve the Land Department and Congress of a fruitful source of annoyance and labor. Practically, the United States can make no disposition of the lands covered by these claims. And they would not if they could. They embrace but about 80,000 acres in all, excluding of course the Houmas and a few other large grants. In nearly every case are embraced in the limits of valuable plantations or farms, have been long since surveyed and represented upon the usual township maps, and hence are susceptible of being readily described in any bill which might be passed for their confirmation, by their proper designation as to section, town |