Junction City to Chetopa, are opened and in operation. Its bonds, to the amount of $12,000,000, were issued November 14, 1869—of which amount there were outstanding on the 1st of May last, $4,221,000. In its northern projection this line will ascend the valley of the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, cross the Union Pacific at Fort Kearny, and form a junction with the Northern Pacific at some point in Montana.

The Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Road, by act of March 3, 1863, was endowed with a landed subsidy of 20 acres per mile. It passes the Osage River at Ohio City, and runs southward to meet the Houston and Texas Central Road at Preston, or at some other point on the Red River. It has been completed to Garnett, 52 miles from Lawrence. By act of July 25, 1866, a land grant of 20 sections per mile was made to the State of Kansas in behalf of a projected line of railway and telegraph from the eastern terminus of the Kansas Pacific Road, southward through the eastern tier of counties of Kansas, to meet a road under construction from Galveston, Texas, to Preston, on Red River. This line, now designated as the Missouri River, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad, has been completed to the south line of the State of Kansas, 160 miles. During the past year 36,426 tons were carried, realizing a gross receipt for freight traffic of $137,052; the mail, express, and miscellaneous receipts were $5,965; and the passenger receipts, $119,545; making a grand total of $262,562. The total expenses were $116,626, leaving a net profit of $149,936, or 57 per cent. of the entire receipts. The earnings per mile were $5,413 66. This company has issued $5,000,000 of first mortgage bonds. Of the $2,000,000 second mortgage bonds, $1,400,000 have been issued. The company owns 650,000 acres of Cherokee lands, and 125,000 acres donated by the State of Kansas.

By act of March 3, 1863, a similar grant was made to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. Of this line 28 miles have been completed, from Topeka to Burlingame, with a further portion under contract for immediate construction. First mortgage bonds, at the rate of 7 per cent. interest, due July 1, 1899, amounting to $15,000 per mile, have been issued.

By act of July 23, 1866, the same grant was made to the St. Joseph and Denver City Road. This company has completed 41.67 miles, with 69.41 in progress. Its first mortgage bonds on 111.08 miles, for $1,500,000, or $13,503 per mile, have been issued for 30 years.

From the statistics collected in Poor's excellent Railroad Manual, it appears that all portions of our country increased their railway mileage during the year 1869. The New England States increased from 4,019 to 4,301 miles; the Middle States increased from 9,765 to 10,752 miles; the Western States and Territories east of the Sierra Nevada from 16,889 to 19.765; the Southern States from 10,693 to 11,272; the Pacific States from 889 to 1,164; the whole Union from 42,255 to 47,254. Railroads have been constructed in all the States, and in the Territories of Wyoming and Utah. Railways have been projected in all the other Territories except Arizona and Alaska. The railway mileage of the United States now exceeds 50,000 miles. The past and present years have presented a remarkable activity in this grand movement, nor is there any reason to suppose that this activity will receive any considerable check, at least, until all parts of the country have been put in easy communication. The New England States have one mile of completed road for each 15.12 square miles. When the whole country shall have arrived at that density, the entire railway mileage will be over a quarter million. The ratio of the Middle States will give over 300,000 miles. At the ratio of Ohio, the aggregate will be over 350,000 miles. The attainment of these results is simply a question of time. From the completion of the circle

of civilization round the northern hemisphere of the globe, we may expect commercial and industrial activities to increase in a greater ratio. The railways of the whole world at the close of 1869 embraced an aggregate mileage of 118,559, of which 49,801 miles belong to North America, 445 to the West India Islands, 1,424 to South America, 61,043 to Europe, 4,474 to Asia, 583 to Africa, and 789 to Australia. Our continent is rapidly gaining upon Europe, and will soon present an aggregate far in advance of that continent.

The entire cost of construction and equipment of the railways of the world is estimated at $11,445,104,373, averaging $96,619 per mile. Of this amount our North American roads represent $2,267,061,313, or $45,523 per mile. European roads cost, in the aggregate, $8,252,390,863, or $135,189 per mile, being the most costly in the world; and of the European roads the most costly are the British roads, averaging $176,269 per mile. Our own railways present a very modest figure in the expense of construction, amounting, in the aggregate, to $2,041,225,770, averaging $44,225 per mile. The New England roads average about $40,000; the Middle States roads about $55,000; the Southern States about $30,000; the Western roads about $44,000; and the Pacific roads about $50,000 per mile. In our cheaper lines, however, we find a greater annual outlay for construction and repair. The English roads net nearly 50 per cent. of their total receipts, but this large percentage of receipts represents a smaller percentage on the capital invested. As investments, then, our roads continue to present special attractions to foreign capital. In this respect our roads are approximating gradually the standard of the European roads. Those costly enterprises are entirely unsuited to the wants and circumstances of our pioneer roads, which could not command any such an amount of capital as would be required to construct lines upon the European model; nor would the business of our roads enable them to pay anything like a remunerating interest upon such a capital. The tonnage transported upon our roads during the year 1869 was considerably over 100,000,000 tons, after making a very liberal allowance for duplicated tonnage. Deducting, further, some 20,000,000 tons for coal and other low-priced freight, and allowing an average of $1.50 per ton for the remaining 80,000,000 tons, we have $12,000,000,000 as the approximate value of the freight actually transported over our roads, or six times the amount of capital actually invested in them. The wonderful growth of our internal commerce is illustrated by comparing these aggregates with those of 1851. The transportation of that year did not exceed five and a half million tons, with a value not much exceeding $80,000,000. The average annual increase of tonnage and value of freight nearly equal those figures. In 1850 the tonnage of merchandise, compared with population, gave about 400 pounds per capita. In 1860 the average was 1,200 pounds per capita. In 1869 it had risen to 3,816 pounds per capita. The values of tonnage, per capita, at these different periods averaged $29, $84, and $285, respectively. It is remarkable that the most rapid increase of tonnage and value of freight is found in the older States. The tonnage of the Massachusetts roads rose from 4,094,364 in 1860 to 8,044,498 tons in 1869, or nearly 100 per cent. increase, whereas the population has not increased in that time more than ten per cent. Taking into consideration the increase of 1870, we may easily see that in a single decade the demand for railway transportation for a settled population has nearly or quite doubled. As compared with the returns of 1851, we find that less than double the population of that period is now furnished with nearly six times the length of railway that then existed, and that the tounage per mile has

et par conséquent d'incomplet dans les résultats qu'il obtient? Comment ne pas le montrer ennemi de l'ordinaire, et toujours en quête de l'exceptionnel, sinon dans le choix de ses sujets, au moins dans la manière de les rendre? Comment ne pas regretter qu'il fasse consister toute la peinture dans le ton et dans le mouvement? Certes la couleur doit participer à l'expression comme le dessin; mais le peutelle au même degré? Et, si le trait ne la soutient et ne la détermine, n'apporte-t-elle pas plutôt une sensation qu'une idée?

Aucune de ces objections n'est à faire à M. Ad. Roger. Sa Vierge aux bleuets offre l'accord assez rare du dessin, de la couleur et de l'expression. Signalons pourtant quelques défauts: la sainte Vierge est agenouillée sans que l'on puisse voir comment son corps se tient en équilibre. Les genoux ne touchent pas au sol, et les talons ne supportent rien. Autre reproche: les jambes de l'enfant divin reflètent avec trop de puissance les tons environnants. Mais avec quelle justesse le peintre a su traduire le caractère propre à chacun de ses personnages! Comme il a mêlé savamment, dans le Christ, l'enfant et le Dieu ! Qu'il est facile de reconnaître, dans la fille prédestinée de sainte Anne, la vierge, la mère, et la première servante du Christ? Comme saint Joseph, une des figures évangéliques les plus difficiles à représenter, est bien empreint de cette gravité respectueuse et douce que tous les grands artistes de Florence et de Rome se sont plu à lui donner!

Si la Vierge aux bleuets de M. Ad. Roger rappelle le sentiment et l'exécution des maîtres italiens, le Christ et la Madeleine, de M. Henri Delaborde, rappelle les types chers à Overbeck. Il nous semble que le bras gauche du Christ n'est pas assez long; mais, après avoir reproché en outre à M. Delaborde l'opacité de ses tons et la sécheresse de ses contours, nous n'aurons que des éloges à lui adresser pour l'élévation et la grâce de son style.

A défaut d'élévation, la grâce anime presque toujours les ouvrages de M. Pradier; mais voici la seconde fois qu'il semble porter la peine de ses préoccupations trop sensuelles. Il a échoué dans sa Pietà comme il avait échoué dans son Christ en croix. Un rare maniement de ciseau se déploie dans ces deux productions; mais le souffle religieux y manque. On cherche le Dieu, on ne trouve que l'homme; on cherche la mère du Christ, on ne trouve qu'une femme; et, chose étrange, voulant la faire idéale, M. Pradier n'a réussi qu'à ne pas la faire

The grand source of profit to railway enterprise in the United States is in the local passenger and freight traffic. When the foreign trade of a nation comes to bear an undue proportion to its domestic trade its influence is for evil. A healthy foreign trade can grow only out of a massive home industry and traffic. Instead of constituting a chief it should hold but a subordinate part in the activities of a nation. The crowning benefit of railways to the social economy lies in their stimu lation of local production and exchange. Hence the exclusive construction of through lines which shall serve only the purposes of foreign trade and a very few points in the interior should be regarded as a departure from the line of normal development.

The multiplication of local lines serving the wants of remote communities is a favorable indication. Massachusetts now possesses a mile of road for every five square miles of territory, sufficient, if mathematically distributed, to place every point of the State within two and a half miles of some working line of road.

The rapid increase of our railway traffic has added a wonderful power to our nationality in the development of our resources. We are no longer the same nation that came out of the war of the rebellion with an enormous debt, with deranged finances, and a chaotic industry. Each year the public debt has borne a smaller proportion to the values of our real and personal estate, a large part of which values has been created by our new railway communications.

Within the last two years an economic administration of the finances has enabled the General Government largely to reduce the principal of this public debt, and consequently to diminish its interest. The value of the tonnage annually transported over our roads is now about five times the amount of our national liabilities. The increasing financial resources of our Government have enabled it to reduce the taxation about $80,000,000 per annum, with the expectation of devolving upon the coming generation a portion of those obligations contracted for the vindication of the integrity of our Union, the benefits of which will inure to our latest posterity. Yet the growth of our resources will soon raise the income disposable for the redemption of the public indebtedness, even under a reduced taxation, to a sum equal to the largest amount that has as yet been disbursed for this purpose. The agency of the public land system, in securing this enormous impulse to our physical development, has already been pointed out in this report and in the previous reports of this office.

Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it is deemed in place to reiterate the opinion, previously expressed, that the process of subsidizing railroad enterprises by donations of public land has been carried fully as far as is compatible with the public interest. Railway construction has now become an investment of capital and labor which stands upon its own merits, overborne by no great public interest requiring the interference of Government.

EXAMINATION AND ENTRIES ON LAND LEDGERS OF THE MONTHLY RETURNS OF LANDS SOLD, LOCATED WITH BOUNTY-LAND WARRANTS, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE SCRIP, AND ENTRIES UNDER THE HOMESTEAD LAWS.

The land ledgers or tract books of the General Land Office are designed to exhibit in brief the history of every individual transaction, in the way of acquiring title, under legislation of Congress in regard to the ordinary disposal of the public lands.

These ledgers, according to townships and ranges, are opened for every district land office in the United States, and upon the receipt here of the returns of land disposals such returns undergo critical examination and test as to the regularity of the proceedings in each case, and the accuracy of the title-papers as to the correctness of description of tracts, of area, of the consideration, and thereafter each and every sale, location, and selection are transferred to our land ledgers, thus affording at a glance information as to every land transaction from the earliest period to recent dates.

The various muniments of title, where found correct, are thereafter carefully arranged in numerical order of date, passed over for the issue of patents or complete titles in favor of the beneficiaries, while in regard to cases found defective, measures are promptly taken for their adjustment.

EXAMINATION AND ADJUSTMENT OF THE RECEIVERS' QUARTERLY ACCOUNTS.

Preparatory to the adjustment of a receiver's detailed quarterly account the items therein to the credit of the United States are each carefully compared with the entries embraced in the register and receivers' monthly returns for the same quarter; the columns in the account appropriated to the areas of the tracts of land sold, and the purchase money, are properly noted.

Adjustments of the accounts are then prepared in the form of a General Land Office report to the Treasury, in which the receiver is debited with the gross amount of purchase money received during the quarter, the amount of $10 and $5 fees, and register and receivers' commissions on homestead entries, fees for locating military warrants and agricul tural college scrip, while he is credited in the adjustment with the moneys deposited to the credit of the United States Treasurer and any payments he may have made upon Treasury drafts, where such deposit and payment have been carried into the Treasury by warrant, and also with such amount as may have been returned on account of payment made with revolutionary bounty land scrip.

Such adjustment, accompanied by the receiver's quarterly accounts, the covering warrants, revolutionary scrip surrendered, and a schedule or statement of such differences as may have arisen in the adjustment, are then sent to the First Comptroller for review and final action.

In regard to the quarterly disbursing account similar reports or adjustments are prepared, in which the receiver, acting as disbursing agent, is debited with the amount of the draft issued in his favor to cover the current expenses of his office during the quarter, and is credited with such items as may have been paid by him on account of salaries and commissions, expenses of depositing the public moneys, as also with legally-authorized contingent expenses of his office, so far as such payment may be supported by proper vouchers.

The adjustment, accompanied by the disbursing account and vouchers, is in like manner sent for review and final action to the treasury. The accounts of the receiver and disbursing agent have been adjusted to 30th June 1870, and sent to the Treasury for settlement.

FUND ACCOUNT.

Accounts of the five per cent. fund accruing to the States of Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon, and the