One surveyor, accompanied by one commissioner for each four townships, should examine, and both should report to the register and receiver of the proper land office, the value of each subdivision of the public mineral lands, together with the proper maps. These views should, together with their own opinions, be communicated by the register and receiver to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, should fix the value of these acre lots. These lands then should be advertised for sale to the highest bidder for cash, at minimum rates, not below those estimated, which should be published. The bids, after six months' advertisement, should be received by the register and receiver of the proper land offices, and also by the Secretary of the Interior, up to the same day and hour, when such bids should be at once opened simultaneously, and the land awarded to the highest bidder above the minimum. To prevent fraud, no bid should be received unless accompanied by a deposit of one per cent. of the amount of the bid, to be forfeited to the Government only if the bid is successful and the amount should not be paid in full. Such tracts as are not sold at or above the appraised value should be disposed if by _entry_ at the minimum price, in the same manner as under our former land system, subject at proper intervals to new appraisements and advertisements. We have seen that our present Commissioner of the General Land Office estimates our mineral public lands as of greater value than all the mineral lands of the world, and that, up to the 16th of April last, they had yielded, in gold alone, nine hundred millions of dollars. This is exclusive of our valuable mines silver, quicksilver, tin, copper, lead, coal, and iron. The lands yielding this $900,000,000 are estimated at five hundred thousand acres--making their value exceed one billion of dollars; and, at the same rate, the remaining twenty millions of acres would be worth forty billions of dollars, or $2,000 per acre. This would be a most extravagant estimate; but at the average price of twenty-five dollars per acre they would bring, as we have seen, five hundred millions of dollars, being a sum larger than our public debt on the 1st of July last. That this sum at least can be realized to the Government by a proper system from our public mineral lands, is my sincere conviction. On this subject, the Commissioner says: