Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1877 — More About the Public Lands. [ARTICLE]

More About the Public Lands.

Maj. Powell, in charge of the geological survey of the Territories, recently made a statement that there is but comparatively a small area of arable land now owned by the United States. This statement has been frequently controverted. Maj. Powell is preparing ter Congress, at the direction of the Committee on Public Lands, an accurate statement of this question, in which he will maintain his assertion. The results of his survey will attract general attention. He divides the United States into three regions with respect to agriculture—the humid or arable, the sub-arid and the arid. In the arable portion, which includes the country east of a line drawn from the eastern part of Lake Superior to the Gulf, the United States owns no lands not taken up. The belt of country 350 miles in width, from Canada to the Gulf adjoining that belt on the west, is the sub-arid division. In this the United States owns a considerable quantity of land which may be cultivated by irrigation. West of that, in the immense arid belt extending from the Rocky Mountains into Eastern California, only 2 per cent, of the land can be cultivated, and of this per cent. 1 per cent, has already been taken up. Maj. Powell is preparing a land atlas of the entire country, in which arable and timber lands are shown.— Washington Correspondence. William Henry Smith, lately appointed First Lord of Admiralty in England, was the great news-vender of Great Britain for many years, and it is a little curious to note that another William Henry Smith holds the same rank in the United States, being the head man of the Western Associated Press. . In a Nevada trial a new theory for defense was evolved. It consists in proving the previous bad character of the accused in mitigation of his crime, and ag an explanation why nothing better cpuld have been exported of him.