ted States; they are the _property of
the Federal Government_, and their intrinsic value _exceeds our public
debt_.

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 bos