Public Lands.-The chief of this bureau is called the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The land bureau is charged with the survey, management, and sale of the public domain, and the issuing of titles therefor, whether derived from confirmations of grants made by former governments, by sales, donations, grants for schools, military bounties, or public improvements; and likewise the revision of Virginia military bounty-land claims, and the issuing of script in lieu thereof. The land office also audits its own accounts. Its principal officers are a recorder, chief clerk, who also acts as Commissioner ad interim, principal clerk of surveys, a draughtsman, assistant draughtsman, and about one hundred and fifty clerks of various grades.

Pensions.-The Commissioner is charged with the examination and adjudication of all claims arising under the various laws passed by Congress granting bounty land or pensions for military or naval services in the revolutionary and subsequent wars in which the United States have been engaged. The Commissioner has one chief clerk, and a permanent corps consisting of seventy other clerks. About a million of dollars are annually disbursed by this bureau.

Indian Affairs.-This office has charge of all matters relating to the Aborigines, and is conducted by a Commissioner, chief clerk, and a clerical forcé from fifteen to thirty in number. The average annual expenditure on Indian account, including the interest on stocks held in trust for the several tribes, and on sums which, by treaty provision, it was stipulated should be invested,

but which have remained in the treasury of the United States, is over $3,000,000 The amount of stock held in trust for Indian tribes by the Department of the Interior is $3,449,241 82, and the net annual interest thereon is $202,002 89. The present liabilities of the United States to Indian tribes, funding at five per cent. the perpetual annuities secured to some of them by treaty and also the annuities payable during the pleasure of Congress, amount to $21,472,423 88. This amount is made up of the following items, viz. :

Principal, at five per cent., of permanent annuities,

guaranteed by treaty, including amounts which it is stipulated by treaty shall be invested, but which are retained in the Treasury, and on which the United States pay interest. Temporary annuities guaranteed by treaty, all of which will cease in a limited period.... Principal, at five per cent., of temporary annuities, payable during the pleasure of the President or of Congress

$7,013,087 80

13,295,936 08

1,163,400 00 $21,472,423 88

The Patent Office not only supports itself, but gradually accumulates a fund which will compensate for the construction of its magnificent building, without taxing the people. Its funds are derived from services rendered. It is intrusted with the special duty of granting letters patent, securing a proper compensation to him who discovers or invents that which benefits his fellow-men. This is not in the nature of a monopoly, as has been sometimes suggested, for the government requires only the estimated cost of investigation and registry. The bureau of Patents, as the organ of the United States, virtually says to the

ingenuity and intelligence of the world: "If you can devise a simpler mode of performing any sort of labor, you shall receive a recompense in proportion to the benefit you confer upon those who ought to pay you." The table below will show the receipts and expenditures of this branch of the government from 1837 (the earliest period at which we have been able to obtain reliable statistics) to 1860:

The whole number of patents issued by the office, from July, 1836, to Dec. 31st, 1860, was 31,004, than which fact we know of no more startling commentary upon the extraordinary development of the mechanical

and mathematical powers of the American mind during the last quarter of a century. In Great Britain the issue of patents for inventions from March 2d, 1617 (the date of the first Letters of Patent), to December 31st, 1860, has been as follows:

1617, March 2, to Oct. 1, 1852........ 14,359

Oct. 1, to Dec. 31, 1852....

1,211

3,045

2,764

2,958

3,106

3,200

3,007

3,000

..over 3,000

1859

1860...

To this bureau is committed the execution and performance of all acts and things touching and respecting the granting and issuing of patents for new and useful discoveries, inventions and improvements; the collec tion of statistics relating to agriculture; the collection and distribution of seeds, plants, and cuttings. It has a chief clerk-who is by law the acting Commissioner of Patents in the absence of the Commissioner—twelve principal, twelve assistant, and several second-assistant examiners of patents.

All books, maps, charts, and other publications heretofore deposited in the Department of State, according to the laws regulating copyrights, go to the Department of the Interior, which is charged with all the duties connected with matters pertaining to copyright, which duties have been assigned by the Secretary of the Interior to

the Patent Office, as belonging most appropriately to this branch of the service.

The great national importance of its business requires that the Patent Office should cease to be a mere bureau of the Department of the Interior. In the language of the Hon. J. Thompson, when Secretary: "The increase of business in the Patent Office, and the magnitude of its oper ations, give additional force to the recommendations heretofore made for a re-organization of this bureau. The amount of work devolved upon the examiners is enormous, and it is difficult to believe that the reiterated appeals in their behalf would have been so entirely disregarded, had Congress realized the actual condition of the business of the office; and as the office is self-sustaining, it is only reasonable that this department should be empowered to graduate the force employed, by the work to be done, provided, always, that the expenditures shall be kept within the receipts."

The income of the office, for the three quarters ending September 30, 1860, was $197,648 40, and its expenditure, $189,672 23, showing a surplus of $7,976 17.

During this period, five thousand six hundred and thirty-eight applications for patents were received, and eight hundred and forty-one caveats filed. Three thousand six hundred and twelve applications were rejected, and three thousand eight hundred and ninety-six patents issued, including re-issues, additional improvements, and designs. In addition to this, there were forty-nine applications for extensions, and twenty-eight patents extended for a period of seven years from the expiration of their first term.

It may not be out of place to suggest to persons hav