702 THE JOURNAL 0E GEOLOGY. 



friendly to the survey. It is probable, further, that the auditor 

 had conferred with Hon. A. J. Edgerton, then state railroad 

 commissioner, and with the senator (Pillsbury) from St. Anthony, 

 as has been claimed, and that there was, prior to the writer's 

 knowledge, a concerted agreement to devote these lands to the 

 support of the survey. 1 However that may be, the first report 

 of the survey presented the suggestion to the legislature that 

 these lands could be devoted, consistently with the terms of the 

 United States grant, to the maintenance of the survey ordered 

 by the previous legislature. The law that was passed turned 

 these lands over to the custody and control of the regents of the 

 university, with instructions to sell them and devote the pro- 

 ceeds to the support of the geological and natural history sur- 

 vey. Thus the survey was put on a financial basis which prom- 

 ised for it a reasonable duration. When later it was found that 

 there was a large deficit in these lands due to the negligence of 

 the United States officers, and the state was allowed to make 

 re-selections in other portions of its domain, and when such 

 re-selected lands were also devoted by the state to the same 

 purpose, the fund became sufficient, with economy, to keep the 

 enterprise in working activity for several years, and apparently 

 to complete the geological portion. These lands, thus aug- 

 mented, amounted to 38,643 acres, which could not be sold, 

 according to existing law, for less than five dollars per acre. 



In addition to this financial foundation the legislature 

 increased the annual appropriation named in the original law to 

 two thousand dollars, the same to continue until the annual pro- 

 ceeds from the Salt Spring lands should amount to that sum. It 

 was discontinued in 1879. As the sales of the Salt Spring lands 

 did not furnish sufficient revenue the survey became indebted to 

 the university. The legislature, in 1887, appropriated ten thou- 

 sand dollars. In 1891 it appropriated fifteen thousand dollars, 

 and in 1893 ten thousand dollars. 



1 The writer gives these details because some complaint has reached him that due 

 credit had not been given by him, in an earlier account, to the prior conferences of 

 these public officials. 



