in certain railroads to which the United States has granted loans of
credit or subsidies in lands or bonds. By the acts of July 1, 1862, and
July 1, 1864, Congress, in order to encourage the building of a
trans-continental railroad, granted to several Pacific railroad
companies subsidies in land adjacent to the roads, and issued certain
amounts of bonds on which was guaranteed interest at the rate of six per
cent. The amount of lands given and bonds issued were in proportion to
the number of miles of road constructed. The lands were a gift. The
bonds were to be repaid by the companies with all interest which might
have been advanced by the government. From 1850 to 1872 the various
railroads received a total of 155,504,994 acres of lands, and
$147,110,069 proceeds of bonds and interest paid by the United States.
The roads have repaid of this amount $36,723,477, leaving at the present
time due from the roads to the United States the sum of $110,386,592.
This they will be unable to pay upon the maturity of the bonds, and a
bill has been before Congress for several sessions looking towards a
better adjustment of this debt. The Commissioner of Railroads was
originally styled the "Auditor of Railroad Accounts." The office was
created June 19, 1878.

_Geological Survey_.--This branch of the Interior Department was
established in 1879. Its work is the investigation and determination of
the geological structure of the various sections of the country, the
composition of soils, the reclamation of waste lands, etc. In this
bureau are made topographical surveys and irrigation surveys of arid
regions of the United States. The publications connected with this work,
number ten Annual Reports, thirteen Monographs, fifty-eight Bulletins
and five Statistical Papers. In these there is a discussion of the
geological structure of every state and territory, and information
concerning the occurrence and production of each great metallic and