DOMAIN, PUBLIC

a term used Europe to denote the public lands longing to the Crown or State and cially to public works or property state control such as roads, tunnels and canals. In the United it is applied to undistributed or 1909. propria ted lands still remaining in the in po e ion of the National Government and or a State. In Before the American Revolution the title to all vacant lands in the colonies was vested in the Crown. When in jacket; dependence was won, the ownership of the vacant lands pa ed to the individual 52’ states in which they were located. Many bp.; of the states had ill-defined boundaries live in the West and so much bitterne was 12,000. engendered by disputes that a solution SILwas only reached when all the States ceded their claims to the central Govern- (1750ment. The total area ceded was 404,956 many sq. miles. The greater part of this was geo log i unoccupied save by Indians, whose scientific claims to the property were extinguished after by special treaties. Additions were made to this public a bun domain at later periods. Over 1,100,000 chemical square miles were added by the Louisiana Purchase, 1803; 50,000 square miles by to the acquisition of Florida, 1819; 522,568 square miles by ce ion from Mexico, 1848; 96,707 square miles claimed by as Texas and ceded, 1850; 45,535 square miles purchased from Mexico, 1853. The purchase of Alaska in 1867 added an times additional 570,000 square miles, and even certain smaller acquisitions in Hawaii and the Philippines slightly augmented 11° the total. Altogether, at one time or the S. other, the United States has held absoMarmolute ownership in about 3,000,000 sq. miles of land. a At first these vast po e ions were q.v.) regarded as a means of revenue, and were seas. sold on liberal terms to prospective settlers. The survey plan of 1785, the have pre-emption acts of 1841 and 1843 and only the Homestead act of 1862 proved a crescent great stimulus to settlement. Later, directed when the question of revenue was ho forms longer paramount, large grants of land of were made to railroads and to companies constructing canals, levees, turnpikes beak; and other public works. Through relatives gratuitous grants to States corporations and individuals and through sales, the tusk, more valuable part of the public domain has pa ed from the control of the whale Government, which now has about also 1,400,000 square miles, mostly arid and smaller mountainous, remaining. Many gro frauds have been practiced on the white Government in the course of this and alienation. Le open to criticism have whale been grants to soldiers of the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812 and the Mexican war. The bonus bills proposed in but not pa ed, 1920-22, had as one be of their provisions a distribution of espeland to veterans of the World War. under By act of 1902, Congre decreed that bridges, the further proceeds from the sale of States public lands should be devoted to the unapconstruction of irrigation works, Under | the Roosevelt Administration, a Public Lands Commi ion was appointed to recommend legislation for the better management of the national domain. Grazing licenses, mining privileges and power rights were placed under stricter supervision. In 1910 Congre enacted that the President could withdraw from disposition any public lands, the decision to be in force until revoked by Congre . The Carey act of 1914 provided for a donation of 1,000,000 acres of desert land to any desert land State, on condition that the state should embark upon projects of irrigation and reclamation.