764 



UNITED STATES. 



saved and only 1 lost. The value of property 

 involved in these was $29,925, and $26,823 of 

 this was saved. Thirty-seven other persons 

 were rescued by the life-saving crews, and 366 

 vessels were assisted when in peril, and 204 

 warned when running into danger. The cost 

 of the service was $828,474.43. 

 Miscellaneous Statistics. The number of names 



LUCIUS QUINTUS CURTIUS LAMAR, 

 Secretary of the Interior. 



on the pension-rolls at the end of the fiscal 

 year was 345,125. There had been 35,768 new 

 names added and 1,835 reinstated during the 

 year, and 15,233 were dropped, leaving a net 

 increase of 22,369. The average annual value 

 of pensions was $110.36, and the aggregate an- 

 nual value $38,090,985. The operations of the 

 General Land-Office showed that 3,912.450 

 acres had been sold. The total cash receipts 

 were $8,61 0,598.32. Entries and selections for 

 the year amounted to 20.995,513 acres; sur- 

 veys, 31,523,689 acres. The total area of pub- 

 lic- lands surveyed to June 30 was 969,469,347 

 acres; unsurveyed, 845,360,390 acres. Ex- 

 cluding Alaska, about three fifths of the pub- 

 lic domain had passed out of the ownership of 

 the Government. There were at the end of 

 the year 80 new public buildings in course of 

 construction, ranging in cost from $25,000 to 

 $2,000,000, and calling for a total expenditure 

 of $8,5 11,400. 



Coast Defenses. A commission consisting of 

 Secretary of War Endicott ; Gen. Benet, Chief 

 of Ordnance; Gen. Newton, Chief of Engi- 

 neers of the Army; Gen. Abbot of the Engi- 

 neer Corps, Oapt. Smith of the Ordnance De- 

 partment, Captains Sampson and Goodrich of 

 the Navy, Capt. Maguire of Engineers, Joseph 

 Morgan, Jr., of Philadelphia, and Erastus Corn- 

 ing, of New York, was engaged 

 during a large part of the year in 

 inquiring into the subject of coast 

 defenses and fortifications, with a 

 view of reporting upon the needs 

 of the country in that respect. The 

 report was submitted in January, 

 1886. A letter to the Speaker of 

 the House of Representatives from 

 Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, 

 was published early in December, 

 strongly urging the policy of pro- 

 viding, as speedily as practicable, 

 an adequate system of coast de- 

 fenses. 



The Anti-Polygamy Act. The act of 

 March 22, 1882, for the suppression 

 of polygamy in Utah, known as the 

 Edmunds act, was upheld by the 

 Supreme Court in decisions ren- 

 dered on the 22d of March in a 

 series of five cases, in which the 

 right of the commissioners appoint- 

 ed under the act to exclude from 

 the exercise of the elective fran- 

 chise all persons practicing polyga- 

 my had been contested. 



The Fisheries. A diplomatic un- 

 derstanding was entered into by the 

 State Department and the British 

 Minister at "Washington, public no- 

 tice of which was given on the 25th 

 of June, for the extension of the 

 privileges defined and secured by 

 the fishery clauses of the Treaty 

 of Washington, through the season 

 which had then been entered upon. 

 By joint resolution of Congress, adopted March 

 3, 1883, notice had been given of the abroga- 

 tion of these clauses of the treaty on the 1st 

 of July, but no other arrangement had been 

 made, and fishing operations had begun as 

 usual. To avoid collision and dispute, the 

 negotiations had been entered upon at the 

 suggestion of the British Minister, which re- 

 sulted in the diplomatic agreement. This in- 

 cluded an understanding "that the President 

 of the United States would bring the whole 

 question of the fisheries before Congress at its 

 next session in December, and recommend the 

 appointment of a commission in which the 

 Governments of the United States and of Great 

 Britain should be respectively represented, 

 which commission should be charged with 

 the consideration and settlement upon a just, 

 equitable, and honorable basis of the entire 

 question of the fishing rights of the two Gov- 

 ernments and their respective citizens on the 



