TABLE OF POSTAGE TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES.-Continued.

TABLE OF POSTAGE TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES.-Continued.

The Post Office Department, in a circular, dated Nov. 14, 1868, announced the following additional regulations in regard to postage on correspondence for Egypt, forwarded via. North German Union and Trieste:

By Direct Mail to Hamburg or Bremen. Letters, per each 15 grammes (ounce), for Alexandria, 15 cents; Lower and Middle Egypt (excluding Alexandria), 20 cents-prepayment optional; Upper Egypt, 20 cents-prepayment compulsory. On printed matter and samples of merchandise for Alexandria: Newspapers, 8 cents, and book-packets and samples of merchandise, 11 cents per each 4 ounces-prepayment compulsory. Small newspapers, not exceeding 2 ounces in weight, 6 cents; Lower, Middle and Upper Egypt, newspapers, 9 cents, and book-packets and samples of merchandise, 12 cents per each four ounces or under-prepayment compulsory. Small newspapers, not exceeding 2 ounces, 7 cents.

By North German Union closed Mail through England. By this route, there is an addition to the above rates of 5 cents for each letter per 15 grammes (ounce); 1 cent additional on newspaper per each 4 ounces or under; and 2 cents additional on book-packets and samples.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.

This department was established by an act of Congress, approved March 3, 1849. To its supervision and management are committed the following branches of the public service:

1st. The Public Lands.-Its head is the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The Land Bureau is charged with the survey, management, and sale of the public domain, the revision of Virginia military bounty-land claims, and the issuing of scrip in lieu thereof.

2nd. Pensions.-The Commissioner of this bureau is charged with the examination and adjudication of all claims arising under the various and numerous laws passed by Congress, granting bounty land or pensions for the military or naval service in the revolutionary and subsequent wars.

3d. The Indian Office has charge of all matters connected with the Indians. 4th. The Patent Office is charged with the performance of all "acts and things touching and respecting the granting and issuing of patents for new and useful discoveries, inventions, and improvements."

The Department of the Interior has, besides, the supervision of the accounts of the United States marshals and attorneys, and of the clerks of the United States Courts, and the management of the lead and other mines of the United States; the duty of taking and returning the censuses of the United States, and the management of the affairs of public institutions in the District of Columbia.

CHIEF OFFICERS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.
[Corrected at the Department, October, 1868.]

The Land Bureau was first established in 1812 as an office in the Treasury Department, but was transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1859. The public Lands that have belonged, and now belong, to the General Government are situated as follows: 1st.-Within the limits of the United States, as defined by the treaty of 1783, and which are embraced by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, all formed out of the Northwestern Territory as conveyed with certain reservations to the United States by New York, in 1781, by Virginia, in 1784, by Massachusetts, in 1785, and by Connecticut, in 1786; also the lands within the boundaries of the States of Mississippi and Alabama north of the 31° North Latitude, as conveyed to the United States by Georgia in 1802. 2d. Within the Territories of Orleans and Louisiana, as acquired from France, by the treaty of 1803, including the portion of the states of Alabama and Mississippi south of 31°; the whole of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, and the Territories of Colorado, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington. 3d.—Within the state of Florida, as obtained from Spain by the treaty of 1819. 4th.-In New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and California, as acquired from Mexico by the treaty of 1848. 5th.-The "Gadsden Purchase" 23,161,000 acres south of the Gila River from Mexico, in 1854. 6th.-The Russian purchase of Northwestern America or Alaska, in 1867.

The area of the public lands, exclusive of the Russian purchase is 1,465,468,800 acres. The extent of that purchase is estimated at 577,390 square miles, or 369,529,600 acres, making a total of 1,834,998,400 acres.

The aggregate of public lands which have been surveyed is 485,311,778 acres, leaving a residue of 1,349,686,622 acres yet unsurveyed.

The public land or rectangular system of survey and transfer of landed property was adopted May 20, 1785; it has been modified and enlarged by subsequent laws until it has reached proportions and completeness of scientific structure which make it pre-eminently valuable and in some respects unrivaled. Under that system base lines are first established, corresponding with latitude. These are then intersected at right angles by principal meridians in coincidence with longitude. From such bases, townships of six miles square are run out and established with regular series of numbers counting north and south from these bases, while the ranges are counted by like series of numbers as running east and west of the meridians.

The six mile square townships are divided into sections of one mile square

or 640 acres, again into half sections of 320, quarters of 160, half quarters of 80, and quarter quarters or sixteenths of 40 acres.

Since the adoption of the system, covering a period of 82 years, twenty principal bases, and twenty-three principal meridians have been established, and it has been initiated, in all the land States and Territories of the Union, in several of which it has completed the work of surveying. In its progress the whole of the surveys everywhere from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are referable for the identification of any division or subdivision, great or small, to the initial points or intersections of the surveyed base lines with the principal meridians.

The first principal meridian divides the states of Ohio and Indiana; the second is a controlling line in the surveys of Indiana, and in part in Illinois; the third also governing to a certain extent the latter state; the fourth traverses the western part of Illinois, extending through Wisconsin and Minnesota to our northern international boundary; the fifth passing through Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa, with a common base line running due west from the St. Francis river in Arkansas, governs the surveys in these states, also in part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi, and in 'Dakota west of the Missouri; then there is the sixth principal meridian, the initial point of intersection being coincident with the 40th parallel and 92° 13′ west longitude from Greenwich. Upon this line depend the surveys in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and that part of Dakota west of the Missouri.

In addition to these 6 principal meridians and bases, 17 subordinate meridians and corresponding bases have been established. These meridians and bases with their auxiliary standard parallels and guide meridians have required perambulations of surveyors in the field amounting to 1,476,673 lineal miles.

Upon this system thus established over the greater portion of the country rests the whole work of dividing and subdividing the national territory, and of making out the same into different sizes for farms and settlements.

The service has been steadily advancing from the foundation of the government, and in its progress has completed the extension of the lines of survey over the whole surface of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, (the Upper and Lower Peninsula), Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and nearly so in Louisiana and Florida.

Congress by proclamation in 1785, and by acts of 1804 and 1807, protected the public domain from occupation or settlement unauthorized by law, and by the general pre-emption laws of 1830, 1832, 1834, 1841, and 1843, secured to actual settlers pre-emption rights to a certain portion of the public lands. These laws concede the actual settler 160 acres, but require of him the erection of a dwelling with actual inhabitation and cultivation. Congress by subsequent enactments has legislated still further in aid of actual settlers, by holding out encouragement to take possession of the national soil and confirming occupants in their improvements on lands afterwards withdrawn by grants to railroads and for educational purposes. It has also by acts of 1844, 1864, 1865, and 1867, encouraged the growth of towns and cities.