The management of the public lands is in trusted to a bureau of the Interior Department known as the General Land Office, at the head of which is a commissioner appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. This office was created in 1812, and took over the various duties relating to the manage ment of the public lands, which had previously been managed by officers in the departments of State, Treasury, and War. The Land Office con stituted a bureau in the Treasury Department until 1840, when it was transferred to the new Department of the Interior. The commissioner is charged with a series of duties relative to the surveying and sale of the public lands, such as relate to private claims for lands and the issuing and recording of patents for all grants of land of whatever character made under the authority of the United States. Local land offices are estab lished in the various States and Territories where the amount of unsold public land exceeds 100.000 acres. For each land office a register and a re ceiver are appointed, whose duties are to transact the business relating to the public lands in their districts. The registers receive applications for laud, file receipts, and on final payment give to the purchaser a certificate which entitles him to a patent or deed from the United States. For merly the patents were signed by the President of the United States; but that practice was aban doned, and at present they are signed by a secre tary and countersigned by the recorder. It the duty of the receiver to receive money or land scrip from the purchaser, and to issue receipts therefor. Registers and receivers arc appointed by the President, and hold office for four years. All proceedings for the acquirement of public lands are to be made before these officers, and they are empowered to pass upon all claims relating to land within their districts, their decisions, ho• ever, being subject to review by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. Besides these officers, there arc some seventeen surveyors-general—one for each of the surveying districts into which the public domain is divided. Under their direc
tion the public lands are surveyed and described and thus made ready for sale. Another impor tant official of the General Land Office is the recorder, likewise appointed by the President, and charged with countersigning and recording patents. The Commissioner of the General Land Office makes an annual report to Congress of the work of his office, including statistics of land surveys and sales. These volumes contain a vast amount of descriptive and statistical information concerning the public lands of the United States, and are often accompanied by valuable maps showing the Government reserves and the unap propriated domain. The rectangular system of surveying the public lands was early adopted by the Government, and was first practiced in south eastern Ohio under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, geographer of the United States. This system provides for the division of the lands into ranges, townships. sections, and quarter sections.
The ranges are bounded by meridian lines six miles apart. and numbered east and west from a principal meridian. These are divided into town ships six miles square, numbered north and south from a given parallel. The townships are sub divided into thirty-six sections, each one mile square, and these are again subdivided into quar ter sections.
In spite of the fact that nearly 738,000,000 acres have been withdrawn from the public do main,there are still left,according to the estimates of the General Land Office, about 1,071.881,662 acres, of which 917,135,880 acres are unappro priated and unreserved, the total value being esti mated at about $1,000,000,000. In the meantime that part of the public domain which is still un disposed of is being taken up at a rapid rate. The report of the Commissioner shows that dur ing the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, more than 13.000.000 acres were disposed of. The pre ceding table is an approximate estimate of the public lands undisposed of, reserved, and already appropriated.