covets, to the Land Office Register for the district wherein his chosen land is situated, and make affidavit that he is the head of a family, or is 21 years of age, or has performed service in the army or navy of the United States, and that he claims the land for his own exclusive use and benefit, for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not for the use and benefit of any other person. The Register will exact a fee, not exceeding $10, for making the official entry of the land claimed, and upon payment of the fee the person making the claim becomes virtually owner of the entered land. After five years of residence, and cultivation of the land, he will receive from the Government a patent or title for his Free Homestead. The time of residence upon land, necessary to secure a Government title to the same under the Homestead Law, may be reduced from five to three years in the following manner:-Any person having a Homestead, who, at the end of three years' residence thereon, shall have had one acre for every sixteen acres of his farm devoted to the cultivation of timber for at least two years, shall receive his title to the land at the end of the third year instead of the fifth year. But the trees must be in a good thrifty condition, and planted not more than 12 feet apart. The testimony of two credible witnesses shall be deemed satisfactory proofs that the condition of the timber meets the requirements of the statute. The public lands of the United States may be obtained at the minimum Government price by pre-emption, or, in other words, by settling upon and improving the same. Every person, being the head of a family, or widow, or single person, over the age of 21 years, and a citizen of the United States, or having declared his intention to become a citizen according to the Naturalization Laws, and who shall settle upon public lands subject to pre-emption, and who inhabits and improves the same, and who has erected or shall erect a dwelling thereon, is authorised to enter with the Register of the Land Office of the district in which such land lies, by legal subdivisions, any number of acres not exceeding 160 acres, upon payment to the United States of the minimum price, or $1.25 per acre, for such land. But any person claiming to exercise the privileges of the Pre-emption Law, shall make oath before the Receiver or Register of the Land Office of the district -that he has never had the benefit of the Pre-emption Act; that he does not own 320 acres of land in any State or Territory; that he has settled upon the land, and improved it in good faith to appropriate it to his own exclusive use; and that he has not, directly or indirectly, made any contract or agreement with any person whatsoever, by which his title to the same might innure in whole or in part to the benefit of any person except himself. When a person settles upon a piece of land, or improves it, intending to purchase the same, he shall, within thirty days from the date of such settlement, file with the Register of the Land Office, for the district wherein the land is situated, a written description of the same, and a declaration of his intentions to claim the same under the Pre-emption Law. And he must comply with the other conditions enumerated, and pay for the land within twelve months from the date of settlement, else he cannot exact a title to the land. Emigrants may often find it more advantageous to buy partly improved farms, than settle upon the free lands of the Government. PUBLIC LANDS AND LAND OFFICES. Government lands are under the supervision of Registers, who have offices established in the States and Territories where public lands still remain to be disposed. All business in connection with Government lands, whether they may be required by purchase or under the Homestead, Timber, or Pre-emption laws, is transacted at these Land Offices. They are located as follows: LAND OFFICES OF THE STATES AND TERRITORIES. STATES AND TERRITORIES. Alabama Arkansas Arizona.. TOWNS WHERE LOCATED. Huntsville, Montgomery. Little Rock, Camden, Harrison, Dardanelle. San Francisco, Marysville, Humboldt, Stockton, Visalia, Sacra- Denver City, Fairplay, Central City, Pueblo, Del Norte, Lake Sioux Falls, Springfield, Fargo, Yankton, Bismark, Deadwood. Boise City, Lewiston. Topeka, Salina, Independence, Wichita, Kirwin, Concordia, New Orleans, Monroe, Natchitoches. Detroit, East Saginaw, Reed City, Marquette. Taylor's Falls, Saint Cloud, Du Luth, Fergus Falls, Worthington, New Ulm, Benson, Detroit, Redwood Falls. Jackson. Boonville, Ironton, Springfield. Helena, Bozeman. Norfolk, Beatrice, Lincoln, Niobrara, Grand Island, North Platte, Bloomington. Carson City, Eureka. Santa Fé, La Mesilla. Oregon City, Rosebury, Le Grand, Lake View, The Dalles. Olympia, Vancouver, Walla-Walla, Colfax. Menasha, Falls of St. Croix, Wausau, La Crosse, Bayfield, Eau Claire. Cheyenne, Evanston. The acreage of public land entered or disposed of under the Homestead and Timber Culture Acts, during the past five years, will be seen by the following table: Homestead Total........ 1874. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 1875. Acres. Acres. Acres. Acres. Acres. Acres. 3,516,862 2,356,058 2,875,910 2,178,098 4,418,345 5,260,111 802,945 464,870 607,985 520,672 1,870,434 2,766,574 4,322,807 2,820,928 3,483,895 2,698,770 6,288,779 8,026,685 CHAPTER XLI. MINES AND MINING. PENNSYLVANIA is an old and wealthy State. Its resources are not confined to minerals and oil wells; it embraces extensive tracts of rich land, admirably suited for the cultivation of grain and vegetable, and for fruit culture. The cereal products of this Commonwealth, in 1878, amounted to 108,393,320 bushels: in this respect it is the seventh State in the Union. Its large towns, including Philadelphia, which is a great export city of about 1,000,000 inhabitants, and populous mining districts, afford excellent markets for agricultural products. But the value of land is very high-they are European rather than American prices, ranging from £20 to £200 per acre, and therefore beyond the reach of emigrants. For this reason Pennsylvania, in common with the Eastern and New England States, was not treated in a separate chapter. Both anthracite and bituminous coal are largely worked in Pennsylvania. The anthracite field occupies about 470 square miles in Luzerne, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, Dauphin, and Columbia counties. This region is divided into—1. The Southern Coalfield, chiefly embracedin Schuylkill County; 2. the Middle Coalfield, which includes the Lehigh and Mahanoy districts; and, 3. the Northern Coalfield, covered by Lucerne County, and embracing the Wyoming, Lackawanna, Scranton, and Wilkesbarre regions. The bituminous and semi-bituminous coalfields of Pennsylvania are embraced in the Blossburg, Barclay, Broad Top, Clearfield, Westmoreland, Monongahela, and Sonman districts, in the northern belt of the State. Bearing upon the iron ores of Pennsylvania and other States, I quote from "The Practical American Miner." "The primal and gneissic rocks are less elevated in Eastern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania than in North Carolina and Tennessee to the south, or in the States lying to the north. They seldom form mountain ranges in these Middle States, as they do in the Southern and more Northern States. Trappean dykes, and the evidences of volcanic outbursts, or vents, are numerous, and trap rocks of all remote periods are scattered over the greatest part of the gneissic area; but we rarely find beds of magnetic ores to compare with those of the former States. The beds which are developed are in a line, or strike coincident with the magnetic ores of New Jersey, and in the lithological strata containing them in North Carolina." "The Warwick Mine occupies a position between the lower Palaezoic and the Azoic, and the ores are only partially magnetic, changing to brown hematites in their upper strata. This is, however, a true bed, and has been for a long period productive. Starting from a point near to the New Jersey line, north-east of Easton, we find a continuation of the New Jersey magnetic ores developed in Lehigh Hill, though in limited quantities; again in the Durham Mines, south of the former locality. Here the ore is good, and the bed from 2 to 14 feet thick. Still further south we find the Mount Pleasant Mines, and near Reading the Penn's Mount Mines. Following this general strike, the magnetic ores are found in limited quantities in Maryland, but they depreciate in quantity and quality from Lehigh south, and but little productive magnetic ore exists between that point and the mountains of North Carolina, when compared with the immense masses developed in New Jersey, New York, and Azoic range to the north." Pennsylvania is the leading State in the production of both coal and iron. The relative importance of the several |