MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR SADLER.

To the Honorable, the Senate and Assembly:

GENTLEMEN: In obedience to the will of the people of this State, you have assembled in legislative council under conditions of hopeful promise for the future welfare of our Commonwealth. I congratulate you upon the fact that the depression of business and depletion of population and wealth caused by the decadence of silver mining is happily disappearing. New and important discoveries within the State have attracted. investigation and investors to our mining and other possibilities in such number as to remove all doubt of permanence and value. The forces that elevated our mountains and leveled our valleys were not exerted in vain. In the hidden recesses of our mountains the miner delves with confidence for metals which the teeming millions of the earth must have. Not for gold and silver alone, but for every mineral known to be useful and valuable to civilized man. In the valleys the farmer has but to till the soil, plant the seed, irrigate and cultivate, to produce bountiful crops in return. Under such conditions it is not surprising that many of our former citizens are returning from their wanderings, some from the frozen North, others from the torrid regions of the South, to reinhabit and enjoy the most delightful, healthful and invigorating climate to be found in the world, and to share in the general prosperity of our people. Neither is it strange that capitalists and all classes of business men should come with fervid zeal to develop our vast resources and possibilities.

I earnestly hope the Legislature and people of this State will give them hearty welcome and that safe and liberal laws will be enacted for their protection and convenience.

In adverting to the financial condition of the State at this time, I am pleased to inform you that it is now in most satisfactory condition, owing absolutely nothing, and having a credit balance of between three and four million

dollars, consisting of positively reliable interest-bearing securities, which will be shown under the proper heading in this report.

NEVADA STATE BONDS AND UNITED STATES BONDS HELD BY THE SEVERAL FUNDS.

The United States 4 per cent bonds show an increase in past

OBLIQUE BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA.

Prior to the session of the Nevada Legislature of 1901, the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Sur

vey made inquiry regarding the recognition of the boundary line between this State and California, recommending that the line lately surveyed and marked by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey be accepted by the States interested, all of which was set forth in my message to the last Legislature, and resulting in the passage of Senate Joint and Concurrent Resolution No. XVI as follows:

Resolved by the Senate, the Assembly concurring, That in 1903 a Committee shall be appointed from the Legislature of this State, provided the California Legislature shall appoint a like Committee, to jointly confer with the officers of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, with a view to getting the necessary data for properly considering and fixing the oblique boundary line between California and Nevada.

This resolution was forwarded to the Governor of California and acknowledgment received. It seems, however, that the California Legislature had, a few days before the passage of the Nevada resolution, enacted the following law:

AN ACT TO DEFINE AND ESTABLISH A PORTION OF THE EASTERN BOUNDARY OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

[Became a law under constitutional provision without Governor's approval, March 1, 1901.]

The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. That portion of the eastern boundary line of the State of California southeastward from Lake Tahoe, and extending to the Colorado River; that is to say, southeastward from the intersection of the thirtyninth degree of north latitude with the one hundred and twentieth degree of longitude west from Greenwich, to the Colorado River, as lately surveyed, established and marked by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, completed during the year nineteen hundred, is hereby declared to be the true, correct and legal boundary line of the State of California between Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River, and the said line, as surveyed, established and marked aforesaid, shall now and hereafter be recognized and considered by the Courts of this State as the boundary of this State between the two said points, viz: Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River.

It will, from the above, appear that California has already adopted the Geodetic Survey as the boundary line from Tahoe to the Colorado River and it will, therefore, be useless to expect a joint conference.

The question now presented to the Legislature of this State is the propriety of accepting the line as California has done, or permit the matter to remain open. The question of taxation is a source of annoyance to property owners, as both