ance free of charge will require a very large outlay, independent of the amount which, from time to time, must be advanced to meet the annual expenses of the institution. I take pleasure in adding that there is no other school in the country that surpasses this in the ability, zeal, and success with which the president and professors devote themselves to the intellectual and moral training of those committed to their care. Congress, by an act approved June 1, 1866, incorporated the "Columbia Hospital for Women and Lying in Asylum." It was established for the treatment of diseases peculiar to women, and as a lying-in asylum, in which board, lodging, medicine, and attendance should be gratuitously furnished to those unable to pay therefor. At the date of the report of the board of trustees there were seventy-one patients. During the past year four hundred and fifty-one women obtained admission to the asylum, or received from it assistance and medical treatment. Congress, on the 2d day of March last, appropriated ten thousand dollars ($10,000, to aid in the support of this institution. The receipts from private donations were three thousand two hundred and eighty dollars and seventy-two cents, ($3,280 72,) and from patients two thousand one hundred' and fourteen dollars and eighty-eight cents, ($2,114 88,) making an aggregate of fifteen thousand three hundred and ninety-five dollars and sixty cents ($15,395 60.) Congress has always given its sanction, and, whenever they could be properly bestowed, its pecuniary contributions to every well-considered benevolent enterprise adapted to supply the wants or promote the interests of the District of Columbia. This institution is a private corporation, and maintains the same relations to the government as the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. The trustees have, however, determined to submit an annual report to the Secretary of the Interior, and to authorize, upon his order, the admission of patients whose indigence and helpless condition justify them in seeking eleemosynary aid. Few, if any, of the instrumentalities which the benevolence of the age has adopted to alleviate human suffering or minister to human wants present stronger claims to public sympathy than institutions of this descriptionAlthough in its infancy, and with scanty means, this asylum has liberally extended to its beneficiaries skil ́ul medical and surgical aid, and that considerate attention which their peculiar condition required. In consideration of the good already accomplished, and of the pressing necessity for extending the scope of its charities, the directors strenuously urge that it should be established upon a permanent basis. As that object cannot be attained solely by private benefactions, they request an appropriation by Congress of sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) for the purchase of a site and the erection of buildings. I cordially recommend this request to favorable consideration; but if granted, the organic act should be so amended as to secure to the United States a title to the real estate purchased, and an efficient control over the institution. The respective departinents and officers of the national government, the executive departments of the several States and Territories, and the legally designated public libraries and educational institutions of the United States, have been furnished, as far as practicable, with those copies of statutes, books and congressional documentsto which they are respectively entitled under existing laws. For a period of several years, on the completion of the printing and binding of the documents of a session of Congress, there have been delivered to the Department of the Interior four hundred and seventy complete sets of those which are known as "House documents," and only four hundred and twenty sets of 'Senate documents;" thus placing in the custody of this department, after the close of each session of Congress, fifty sets of "House documents" without an equal number of "Senate documents." The statutes which relate to the printing, binding, and distribution of complete sets of public documents need revision. In closing this report, I should do injustice to the officers of this department were I not to declare my high sense of the very efficient manner in which they have discharged their arduous duties. I respectfully refer to the views, in regard to their compensation, presented in the concluding portion of my last annual report, and earnestly invoke for them the favorable consideration of Congress. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, O. H. BROWNING, Secretary of the Interior. The PRESIDENT. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, October 15, 1867. SIR: In accordance with the resolution of the Senate, dated February 28, 1855, I have the honor to present the following as an abstract of the annual report of this office for the year 1867: 1. The area of the public lands, exclusive of the Russian purchase, is 1,465,468,800 acres. The extent of that purchase is estimated at 577,390 square miles, or 369,529,600 acres, making a total of 1,834,998,400 acres. 2. The aggregate of public lands which have been surveyed is 485,311,778 acres, leaving a residue of 1,349,686,622 acres yet unsurveyed. 3. The quantity of public land disposed of during the last fiscal year is 7,041,114.50 acres, of which there were sold for cash 756,619.61 acres; located with military bounty land warrants 476,760 acres; taken for homesteads under the acts of 1862, 1864, and 1866, 1,788,043.49 acres; approved to several States as swamp "in place" 1,030,020.22 acres; for indemnity swamp selections 36,429.93 acres; titles vested in certain States under railroad, wagon-road, and ship-canal grants for 533,168.52 acres, and located with agricultural and mechanic college scrip, together with selections made by States within their respective limits, 2,420,072.73 acres. 4. The amount received on cash sales, pre-emptions, military scrip received as money, homestead payments, and commissions, fees for locating agricultural college scrip on military warrants, and railroad selections, commissions on preemptions, and donations and proceeds from furnishing transcripts under act of July 2, 1864, is $1,347,862 52. 5. The excess disposed of over the previous year is 2,411,800 acres. 6. Explanation of the public surveying system is given, indicating the structure of base lines, principal meridians, township and sectional lines, showing the establishment, since the adoption of the system in 1785, of twenty principal bases and twenty-three principal meridians, extending into all the States and Territories carved out of the public domain, except the Russian purchase, aggregating in length 1,476,673 lineal miles, the locality of each base and meridian being designated. 7. The public surveys have been extended wholly over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and nearly so in Louisiana and Florida. 8. Outline sketches are given of the rise and progress of each of the public land States and Territories, with their areas, and the advancement of surveys therein; commencing with Ohio, where the system had its initiation, to the Territory of Montana, where that system was inaugurated in 1867. 9. Landed property; the rise and progress shown of the pre-emption system, with results; number stated of farms under actual cultivation; also of urban settlements. 10. Homestead policy considered with homestead rulings; results shown. 11. Relation of foreigners to real estate in the United States. Laws respecting naturalization. 12. Legislation making provision for schools, seminaries of learning, and colleges; extent of such concessions. 13 Extent of grants shown for military services since the foundation of the government. 14. Operations of the General Land Office, in connection with Indian rights; sketch of Pueblos. 15. Foreign titles; effect of laws of 1860-'66 explained in regard to the adjudication of a certain class of claims, including not only those under gov ernments which, de jure, preceded the United States, but also those from governments de facto. 16. Legislation shown respecting the discontinuance of surveying districts. 17. Laws respecting discontinuance of land offices; the new offices established; proclamation of sales.. 18. Military reservations; legislation recommended so as to confer authority for the sale of such as may be abandoned. 19. Account of surveyors general, deputies, receivers of public money and disbursing officers, reported as settled to the end of fiscal year. 20. Transcripts of archives reported as furnished to supply lost records in the southern and other States. 21. Laws respecting the suppression of timber depredations and measures taken in that respect. 22. Proceedings hadespecting certain special improvement interests, viz: the Fox and Wisconsin, Des Moines, Portage lake, Sturgeon's bay, and Lac la Belle. 23. Swamp and overflowed land concessions; results submitted; further legislation recommended. 24. Riparian interests considered; rights of the United States to the islands in the Mississippi, which, although not navigable according to the theory of the English law, yet are so in fact, and in virtue of acts of Congress. 25. Geological survey of Nebraska; results reported under legislation in that respect. 26. General views as to the extension of such explorations. 27. Proceedings had for the establishment of the boundary lines between Colorado and New Mexico, California and Oregon. 28. A revival of the laws recommended in regard to the right of way, which was conceded in past legislation, for railroads and turnpikes. 29. Pacific slope; its extent; also its importance shown in an agricultural, mineral, and commercial point of view. 30. Roads and railways considered; legislation in respect to the same, and progress made. 31. Relation of the United States to the trade of the East. 32. In the papers accompanying this report will be found an account of the gold and silver producing countries, the amount taken from the mines since the discovery of America, with a summary of the mineral wealth of the United States. 33. The report is accompanied by the returns of the surveyors general of the number of acies surveyed, total unsurveyed on 30th June, 1867, area of the public domain remaining unsurveyed, cash sales, homestead, extent of swamp concessions, internal improvement selections, agricultural college. 34 General tabular statement exhibiting the disposal of the public lands, under twenty-two different heads, from the commencement of the land system to 30th June, 1867 35. Historical and statistical table of the United States and States of North America. 36. The report is accomp inied by maps of the public land States and Territories, a connected map of the United States, as it existed prior to the Russian |