MEMORIAL FROM COLORADO. 309 



About the time of tlie Los Angeles Convention, a similar 

 meeting was held in Denver, Colorado, the results of which 

 were embodied in an eminently practical memorial which was 

 presented at the following session of Congress. This memorial 

 prays for the enactment of a law embracing the following gen 

 eral provisions : 



1. To grant to the several States and Territories named in the 

 preamble to this memorial, one half of all the arid lands, not 

 mineral, within their borders; said lands, or the proceeds thereof, 

 to be devoted to the construction of irrigating canals and reservoirs 

 for the reclamation of said arid and waste lands. 



2. That the construction and maintenance of irrigating canals 

 and reservoirs shall be under the exclusive control and direction of 

 the Territory or State, as sole owner thereof, under such laws, rules 

 and regulations as the Legislature thereof shall from time to time 

 provide. 



3. That the Territorial and State Legislatures shall have power 

 to make all needful rules and regulations, and take all needful steps 

 for the proper construction and maintenance of such canals, and 

 that such power shall include the power to provide by law for the 

 issuing of the bonds of the Territory or State for the construction of 

 such canals. 



4. That the proceeds of said lands herein granted shall be kept 

 as an exclusive fund by the Territory or State; first, for the payment 

 of the principal and interest of all bonds so issued as aforesaid; 

 second, that any balance remaining after the payment of the bonds 

 issued as aforesaid shall be used in the maintenance of said canals, 

 as the Legislature of said Territory or State shall from time to time 

 by law direct. 



5. That any lands within said Territory or State which shall be 

 filed under the provisions of the pre-emption and homestead laws of 

 the United States after the passage of this Act, shall be subject to 

 the operation of this Act, if the said lands shall be brought under 

 irrigation by the construction of said canals. 



G. That the lands donated to the several States and Territories 

 herein named, and the remainder of the public domain therein be 

 longing to the General Government, shall be disposed of under 

 revised and more strict pre-emption and homestead laws than are 

 now in force, and that no title shall issue until the claimant shall be 

 a bona fide, actual settler upon the land claimed. 



While the attention of the people at large was thus directed, 

 an Act of Congress had been passed, March 3, 1873, authoriz 

 ing a commission to examine and report a system of irrigation 

 for the San Joaquin, Tulare and Sacramento valleys. By the 

 terms of the act, the President was to select for this duty, army 

 engineers or officers of the Coast Survey then stationed on the 

 Pacific, allowing such officers to associate with themselves in 



