'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the Western, Northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is found revealing its wealth. 'Instead of dreary, inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the science of the present age. 'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element, coal, the source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent, not only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of active and constant intercommunication with every part of the republic.' Kansas having been admitted since the date of this Report, our public domain, thus described officially, now includes the sixteen _land States_, and _all_ the Territories. Of this vast region (originally 1,450,000,000 acres), there was surveyed up to September, 1860, 441,067,915 acres, and 394,088,712 acres disposed of by sales, grants, etc., leaving, as the Commissioner states, 'the total area of unsold and unappropriated, of offered and unoffered lands of the public domain, 1,055,911,288 acres.' This is 'land surface,' exclusive of lakes, bays, rivers, etc., 1,055,911,288 acres, or 1,649,861 square miles, and exceeds one half the area of the whole Union. The area of New York, being 47,000 square miles, is less than a thirty-fifth part of our public domain. England[3] (proper) has 50,922 square miles, France 203,736, Prussia 107,921, and Germany 80,620 square miles. The area then of our public domain is more than eight times as large as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more than 200 millions of people.