[1] SIR: For the purpose of enabling you to recommend to Congress, at its approaching session, such measures as you may judge necessary and expedient respecting the various subjects confided to the Department of the Interior, I respectfully submit the following report. The law creating this department was approved the 3d of March, 1849. By its provisions, the Secretary of the Interior is required to exercise supervisory and appellate powers over the acts of the Commissioner of Patents, of the General Land Office, of Indian Affairs, of Pensions, and of Public Buildings; and also over the accounts of marshals, clerks and other officers of the courts of the United States; over the officers engaged in taking the census, the inspectors and warden of the penitentiary of the District of Columbia, and the subject of lead and other mines of the United States. He is also charged with other duties not specially mentioned in the law, but which, from their peculiar nature, appropriately belong to his office. Among these is the general supervision of the proceedings of the commission instituted, under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to run and mark the boundary line between the United States and Mexico. Under each of these several heads he has important and responsible functions to perform. He prescribes rules for the general administration of the different bureaus; sees to their faithful execution, and decides, judicially, on all appeals from either of them which may be brought before him. Such is the general outline of the duties of the office. The reports of the heads of the several bureaus will give full and satisfactory information of their respective operations, accompanied by many valuable suggestions of improvements and modifications in the existing laws. It is proper, however, that I should exhibit to you a condensed summary of the condition of the department as a whole, with such remarks of my own as the public interests seem, in my judgment, to demand. This I will now proceed to do; and, for the sake of convenient reference, my statements will be arranged under the different heads above enumerated, and such others as may be necessary. A vicious practice has prevailed for some years past, of reduci mates at the commencement of the session below the amount cessary, with the view of afterwards applying for additional aj in what is called a deficiency bill. I took occasion in my ! express my disapprobation of this practice, and I required the several bureaus, attached to this department, to make full a mates of all that the public service required. It was according now, instead of deficiencies amounting to near two millions will be found that they are but little over $300,000. It is in foresee what will be the actual expenditures of any given ye they depend on contingencies beyond the control of the depar it must be admitted that there has been a reasonable appro accuracy, when it is found that, in the disbursement of more millions of dollars, the expenditures exceed the estimate $300,000. With these general remarks, I proceed to submit detailed expl each class of the estimates, in the order in which they stand. Under this head the estimate for the next fiscal year exceeds t present, $7,577 50. This results from the fact that at the ex the last fiscal year unexpended balances of former appropriations as stated in my last annual report, which brought the estimates of sent year below their legitimate amount, The estimate for the present fiscal year amounted to That for surveys of the public lands $50,000 00. [1] S$36.152 50 - 155,305 00 230,305 00 And the expenditures properly chargeable to the present fiscal year will be shown to be 1,066,457 50 $1,284,916 47 155,305 00 1.129.611 47 The estimate for the next fiscal year amounts to Deduct the sum embraced therein to meet deficiencies in the present year And the amount chargeable to the next year is Being an excess over the estimate for the present year, of 63,153 97 This is accounted for by the unexpectedly large amount required for the surveys in California. Leaving California out of the question, and the estimates compare thus: Estimate for the present year Deduct the amount therein for surveys in California And it will leave the amount chargeable to the present year $836,152-50 7,000 00 829,152 50 822,036 47 And the amount properly chargeable to the next fiscal year will be Being $7,116 03 less than the amount properly chargeable to the present year. Indian affairs. Under this head the estimates for the next fiscal year amount to $1,098,196 30 less than those for the present fiscal year. For reasons stated in my last annual report, the estimates for the present year were unusually large, but the estimates for the next fiscal year are even below the average of those for the last and present fiscal years. |