| OCR Text |
Show -3- to procure a cession from the General Government of the unappropriated portion, with the view of accomplishing the work which the present bill contemplates. The measure was brought before Congress, and after a lengthy and careful examination, the Committee on the Public Lands reported a bill making a cession of about one-half of the lands called for by the State. (See Appendix A.) It shared the fate of many meritorious measures- went to the public calendar, and there rests. The Commissioner of Public Lands, to whom the matter was referred for information, reported a suggestion "that the Secretary of War be authorized to cause a survey and examination to be made as to the practicability of supplying water to this region as proposed, and as to the character of the soil, &c. That should it appear from such survey that the work is a feasible one, and that the tract in its present condition is uninhabitable and incapable of cultivation, that power be conferred on the Secretary of War to make the grant absolute," &c. (See Appendix B.) After a delay of sixteen years the survey has been made, the official and authoritative report published (see Appendix C); and, as will be seen, the measure is reported practicable, and only practicable on the line of survey made by the present applicant sixteen years before (see Appendix D) ; and as to the fact of its being uninhabitable, in its present condition, there has been ample testimony furnished, officially, and by Government officers. (See appendix of a portion of testimony furnished.) But the practicability of introducing water on this desert was established by the laws of nature long before it was determined by instrumental survey, by the waters of the Colorado flowing into it through a natural canal. Having ample authoritative evidence now that this desert was appropriately named f( Jornada de la Muerte" (desert of death), and that it can be made a habitable, productive field by irrigation, it was again brought before the Forty-fourth |
