LANDS 3309 



its representation in Congress as a subsidy' or 

 endowment for an agricultural college. These 

 additional gifts have involved about 10,000.000 

 acres. 



Remaining Public Lands. Though much of 

 the public land has thus been granted or sold, 

 large sections still remain, chiefly in the West. 

 The following table gives the areas still unap- 

 propriated and available for settlement, on 

 July 1, 1916: 



LANDS 



Kiich township contains thirty-six sections of 

 one square mile each, or 640 acres. The sec- 

 tions are subdivided into quarter-sections of 

 160 acres. For purposes of description all 

 townships in a north and south line are said to 

 be in a range. Certain of the meridians of 

 longitude are called principal meridians and 

 certain of the parallels of latitude are named 

 as base lines. If a township is the second one 

 north of a base line in the fifth range east of 



* The unappropriated lands in Alaska are not included heroin. 

 378,165.760 acres, of which about 15,500,000 acres are reserved. 



The total area of Alaska is 



Management oj Public Lands. Tlie adminis- 

 tration of the public domain is the work of 

 the General Land Office, a bureau in the De- 

 partment of the Interior. At its head is the 

 Commissioner of Public Lands, who is ap- 

 pointed by the President and receives an an- 

 nual salary of $5,000. The Commissioner is 

 responsible for the surveying and sale of lands, 

 and for all documents and records in connec- 

 tion with them. He reports annually to Con- 

 gress, and issues maps and circulars of infor- 

 mation to the public. In each state where the 

 area of the public lands exceeds 100,000 acres 

 there are local Federal land offices, in charge 

 of a register and a receiver, both appointed by 

 the President. The registrar receives applica- 

 tions for land, and when the final payments 

 have been made issues a certificate entitling 

 the owner to a deed, or patent, from the 

 United States. The patents are issued by the 

 General Land Office in Washington and are 

 signed by the recorder and the secretary; for- 

 merly they were signed by the President, but 

 a secretary, appointed by the President, now 

 performs this duty. All decisions of the local 

 receivers or registers are subject to final ap- 

 proval by the Commissioner. 



Ranges, Townships and Sections. When pub- 

 lic lands are surveyed they are divided like a 

 checkerboard into townships six miles square. 



the second principal meridian it is described us 

 Township two north, range five east of the sec- 

 ond, as shown on the first diagram below. The 

 description SW y NW V Sec. 9, Tp. 2N Ro 



DIAGRAM OF TOWNSHIPS AND RANGES 



E2 refers to the forty-acre tract shown in black 

 in the diagrams; it means the southwest quar- 

 ter of the northwest quarter of section nine in 

 township two north in range five east of the 

 second meridian. 



In Canada. The public lands of the Do- 

 minion of Canada are known as Crown lands. 

 They are situated almost entirely in the prov- 

 inces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta 

 and in the Northwest Territories, and were 

 acquired by purchase from the Hudson's Bay 

 Company in 1869. Elsewhere in Canada the 

 Crown lands are controlled by the provincial 



