suitable effort should be made to secure such future appropriations as will enable this office to replace its wooden cases now in use with the more approved metal ones as rapidly as may be. In this connection it may be stated that the metal cases are understood to be much more economical in space, containing about double the filing capacity of those now in use for the same floor space. I again referred to the subject in a letter of the 20th of June, 1891, to the Hon. Secretary of the Interior, in which it is said: Referring to our conversation of yesterday, regarding the insecurity of records of this office on account of the great amount of inflammable material in the building, I desire again to invite your attention to my requisition of the 16th instant for certain metal cases. I find from a cursory examination that there are in the land office several hundred thousand feet of lumber in the form of file cases, about 150,000 feet in the recorder's division alone. This lumber is mostly pine, painted and very dry and consequently combustible to a high degree, constituting an incessant menace to records, the loss or destruction of which, even if but partial, would be irreparable and immeasurable. I find, also, that there are stored in these wooden cases hundreds of tons of paper, the records of the government's land transactions from the beginning. In view of these startling facts I am loath to assume the responsibility of making further requisition for wooden cases and furniture by which to increase the imminent peril now menacing these valuable records. In your letter to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, dated January 28 last, you made the following forcible presentation of the case: "I have to further state that, from my own observation, there is entirely too great an amount of wood and paper extended throughout this building, the accumulation of many years, to be at all safe against fire, and that the means and appliances for extinguishing fire are inadequate. It will be remembered that this building has once caught fire and a very considerable portion was consumed. It is probable that another fire will occur if the condition of the building remains as it is. It is overcrowded with employés and the most combustible matter that could possibly be brought together, and, aside from the danger to human life, is the possible destruction of the most valuable records of the government. With our country growing as it has been and with the greatly increased business of the different bureaus of this department, it becomes my bounden duty to call your attention to the present condition of affairs and give you warning that, unless the government sees fit to make the places for its operatives to work in more commodious and the storehouses more secure, in my judgment, it will soon meet with a calamity alike discreditable to its humanity and dangerous to its most valuable documents." There now seems to be a practical remedy for the evil in the metal file cases such as those proposed in my requisitions of the 16th instant. I beg leave, also, to suggest the special desirability of providing metal cases for those divisions of the Land Office about to be removed to a building necessarily less fire-proof than this. In view of the urgency of the situation, I have conferred with representatives of two different manufactories of such furniture as to the approximate cost of these cases and find it will approach the sum of $10,000. I have the honor to request that you make preliminary arrangements with one of these, or some similar house, to authorize the speedy construction of these cases for such portions of the Land Office as are required to vacate on the 1st proximo the rooms now occupied by them. It will probably be impossible to remove the old cases to the new quarters or detach them from their present positions without breaking them up, and many of them, it is hoped, may be utilized by the portion of the Patent Office to be assigned to the rooms where the cases are now located, thus partially offsetting the increased expense of the new cases. INT 91-VOL I-5 I respectfully recommend that the attention of Congress be called to this subject, and that the views above given with regard to the need of a suitable building to be erected for the accommodation of this office and its records in a safe and suitable manner may be presented in the proper quarter in such way as to bring about, if practicable, a speedy realization of the object sought. Respectfully submitted. Hon. JOHN W. NOBLE, THOMAS H. CARTER, Commissioner. Secretary of the Interior. DETAILED STATEMENT OF THE BUSINESS OF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE, BY DIVISIONS AND IN SURVEYING DISTRICTS, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1891. DETAILED STATEMENT. A detailed statement of the work performed in the General Land Office and surveying districts during the year is given under the following heads: 1. B. Recorder's division. 2. C. Public lands division. 3. D. Private land claims division. 4. E. Surveying division. 5. F. Railroad division. 6. G. Preëmption division. 7. H. Contest division. 8. K. Swamp-land division. 9. L. Drafting division. 10. M. Accounts division. 11. N. Mineral division. 12. P. Special service division. 13. Report of surveyor general of Arizona. r |