170 LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
ject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States”. 
The second section provided that ‘the lands hereby granted shall not be 
conveyed or disposed of by said Territory, nor by any State to be formed 
out of the same, except as said improvements shall progress; that is, the 
said Territory or State may sell so much of said lands as shall produce the 
sum of thirty thousand dollars, and then the sales shall cease until the gov- 
ernor of said Territory or State shall certify the fact to the President of 
the United States that one-half of said sum has been expended upon said 
improvement, when the said Territory or State may sell and convey a 
quantity of the residue of said lands suflicient to replace the amount 
expended, and thus the sales shall progress as the proceeds thereof shall be 
expended, and the fact of such expenditure shall be certified as aforesaid.” 
Section 8 declared that the river should forever remain a public 
highway for the use of the Government, free from toll or other charge 
whatever; and provided that the Territory or State should not dispose of 
the lands at a price less than the minimum price of public lands. 
The grant to Wisconsin for the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin 
Rivers, though approved the same day, was somewhat different from the 
Des Moines grant. It provided that ‘there be, and hereby is, granted to 
the State of Wisconsin”, upon the admission of Wisconsin as a State (which, 
by the way, had been provided for by an act approved two days before), 
“for the purpose of improving the navigation of the Fox and Wisconsin 
Rivers in the Territory of Wisconsin, and of constructing the canal to 
unite the said rivers, at or near the portage, a quantity of land, equal to one- 
half of three sections in width on each side of said Fox River, and the ° 
lakes through which it passes from its mouth to the point where the portage 
canal shall enter the same, and on each side of said canal from one stream 
to the other, reserving the alternate sections to the United States, to be 
selected under the direction of the governor of said State, and such selection 
to be approved by the President of the United States”. The rivers, when 
improved, were to remain forever public highways for the use of the 
Government, free from toll; and the sections reserved to the United States 
were not to be sold for less than $2.50 per acre. 
By the second section, the legislature of the State was to accept the 
