“A large amount of such proceeds is still under adjudication and yet to be reported. The total expenditures of the Navy Department, of every description, including the cost of the immense squadrons that have been called into existence, from the 4th of March, 1861, to the 1st of November, 1864, are $238,647,262 35. Your favorable consideration is invited to the various recommendations of the Secretary of the Navy, especially in regard to a navy yard and suitable establishment for the construction and repair of iron vessels, and the machinery and armature for our ships, to which reference was made in my last annual message. “Your attention is also invited to the views expressed in the report in relation to the legislation of Congress at its last session in respect to prizes on our inland waters. “I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Secretary as to the propriety of creating the new rank of Vice-admiral in our naval service. “Your attention is invited to the report of the Postmaster-General, for a detailed account of the operations and financial condition of the Post-Office Department. The postal revenues for the year ending June 30, 1864, amounted to $12,438,253 78, and the expenditures to $12,644,786 20; the excess of expenditures over receipts being $206,532 42. “The views presented by the Postmaster-General on the subject of special grants by the Government in aid of the establishment of new lines of ocean mail steamships, and the policy he recommends for the development of increased commercial intercourse with adjacent and neighboring countries, should receive the careful consideration of Congress. “It is of noteworthy interest that the steady expansion of population, improvement and governmental institutions over the new and unoccupied portions of our country have scarcely been checked, much less impeded or destroyed by our great civil war, which, at first glance, would seem to have absorbed almost the entire energies of the Nation. “The organization and admission of the State of Nevada has been completed in conformity with law, and thus our excellent system is firmly established in the mountains which once seemed a barren and uninhabitable waste between the Atlantic States and those which have grown up on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. “The Territories of the Union are generally in a condition of prosperity and growth. Idaho and Montana, by reason of their great distance and the interruption of communication with them by Indian hostilities, have been only partially organized; but it is understood that those difficulties are about to disappear, which will permit their governments, like those of the others, to go into speedy and full operation.