The pension appropriation law, approved August 17, 1912, provided that the eighteen existing pension agencies should be consoliPension Agencies Consolidated. dated after January 31, 1913, into one central agency at Washington. For the text of the consolidation paragraph see page 126 of this volume.

PENSION PAYMENTS AND NUMBER OF PENSIONERS. Pension payments, the cost of the pension establishment and the number of pensioners carried on the roll from 1889-90 to 1911-'12 are shown in the following table:

PENSIONS OF THE SEVERAL WARS AND OF THE PEACE ESTABLISH

MENT.

The amounts that have been paid for pensions to soldiers, sailors and marines, their widows, minor children and dependent relatives, on account of military and naval service since the foundation of the government to June 30, 1912, are as follows:

The gross receipts of the United States Steel Corporation from April 1, 1901, to Dec. 31, 1910, aggregated $5,818,243,724.

THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES.

The United States Fish Commission was created by an act of Congress passed in 1871, with the object of making inquiries as to the diminution in the number of food fishes of the coasts and lakes of the United States Origin and Growth and to suggest "protective, prohibitory or precautionary of the Service. measures" for conserving the supply. Professor Spencer F. Baird, then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, became the first commissioner. Until 1903 the office was known as The United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries," and was an independent institution, not included within the scope of any of the executive departments. In 1903 it was transferred to the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor, becoming the United States Bureau of Fisheries. For many years the bureau was without any executive control in fishery affairs. Recently, however, it has acquired executive powers in Alaska for the enforcement of a code of laws affecting the salmon fisheries. Since December 28, 1908, it has had supervision of the furseal fisheries in Alaska It also conducts many fish-cultural stations and hatcheries for the distribution of fish and eggs. The hatcheries operated in 1909-'10 numbered thirty-six and the sub-hatcheries and egg-collecting stations ninety. The land owned and occupied by the bureau at its fish-cultural and biological stations has an aggregate area of over twelve thousand acres, with a value of $240,000. The improvements and equipments at these stations represent an investment of more than $1,000,000. Other property of the bureau includes four seagoing steam and sail vessels, twenty steam launches and one hundred and fifty small sail, power and row boats, which, with equipment, have a value of $300,000. Its six fish transportation cars are valued at $45,000. The aggregate investment of the federal government in property devoted to the fishery service is thus about $1,585,000.

The following table shows the distribution of fish and eggs by species for the fiscal year 1910-11:

The entire length of the Capitol at Washington is 751 feet 4 inches and its great

est width is 350 feet.

Fish eggs were distributed to the state fisheries in 1910-11 as follows:

On the establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor, in 1903, the Alaskan fur-seal service was transferred thereto from the Department of the Treasury, to which it had been attached for many years. In the The Fur-Seal Department of Commerce and Labor this service formed a distinct Fisheries. branch and was administered through the secretary's office until December 28, 1908, when it was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries. The Commissioner of Fisheries has appointed a special board, composed of five members of the bureau's staff who have personal knowledge of the Alaskan fur seals, and to this board has been assigned for consideration and recommendation all matters pertaining to the seal life on the Pribilof Islands, the blue foxes and other animal resources on the islands, and the government's relations to the natives and the lessees. On January 13, 1909, the secretary, on the recommendation of the commissioner, appointed an advisory board for the fur-seal service, consisting of David Starr Jordan, Leonhard Stejneger, C. Hart Merriam, Frederic A. Lucas, Edwin W. Sims, Frank H. Hitchcock and Charles H. Townsend.

The sealing lease of the North American Commercial Company expired on June 30, 1910, and was not renewed. In order to repair the great losses which have occurred in the seal fisheries through pelagic sealing, Congress passed a law, approved April 21, 1910, further regulating the conditions under which seals can be taken. Under the law and on the advice of the advisory commission, Secretary Nagel ordered the killing of most of the superfluous male seals as bachelors. The full text of the act can be found on page 130 of The Tribune Almanac for 1911. The Senate ratified at the extra session of Congress in 1911 a treaty between the United States, Great Britain, Russia and Japan for the prevention of pelagic

sealing, and it is now hoped to replenish the North The Sealing Treaty and Pacific seal herd and to restore the greatly impaired Sealing Legislation of 1912. value of the seal fisheries. The text of the treaty will be found on pages 131 to 133 of The Tribune Aimanac for 1912. Congress passed a law, approved August 24, 1912, carrying into effect the sealing treaty. It provided for a closed season of five years. full text of the law will be found on pages 126-128 of this volume,

The

The value of cotton consumed by mills in this country in 1899 was $124,905,000 and in 1909 $271.402.000.

NUMBER OF PERSONS EMPLOYED IN THE FISHERIES, EQUIPMENT, WITH VALUE AND OTHER CAPITAL, AND VALUE OF PRODUCTS, BY

STATES, CALENDAR YEAR 1908.2

[From Reports of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor.]

2These statistics are confined to the fishing industry and do not include packIng and canning establishments or wholesale fish dealers.

Includes Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia.

The following table shows the quantity and value of fish landed by American fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., in 1910, from grounds off the coasts of the United States, Newfoundland and the Canadian provinces:

Between 1899 and 1909 the cotton consumed by mills in this country increased

from 1,814,003,000 pounds to 2.332,569,000 pounds.

Total

412,300

5,800 54,159

6,155 4,581,250
95 14,702,308|

142,463 265,740

12,000

105

6,968

1,559,381)

138,765

1,170

117

16,048

2,127

117,282,498 $2,892,657| 24,369,5421 $680,222 40,082,232|$1,260,462

1Includes 141,483 pounds of salted halibut from Greenland, valued at $12,299.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The maximum extent of the public domain was 1,849,072,587 acres. Of this total 259,171,787 acres were ceded by the states to the United States, 1,589,900,800 acres were purchased or acquired by cession from foreign countries. From this total should be deducted lands in Tennessee, which, by the act of February 18, 1841, were given to that state. No land within the boundaries of Texas ever became a part of the public domain.

The Government's
Land Policy.

Of the maximum area there were left on July 1, 1912, 682,984,762 acres, of which 368,000,000 acres were in Alaska. The remainder has been disposed of by the United States under various laws passed for that purpose, by direct sale to individuals or associations, by grants to states for school or other purposes, to grants in aid of the construction of public roads or railroads, by direct grants to individuals for military or other services and by allotments to individuals under the homestead or other public land laws. After the first cessions by the original states to the nation, the area thus ceded amounting to 259,171,787 acres, the Congress of the Confederation adopted the policy holding those lands as an asset for the payment of the debts of the United States. That policy-the policy of sale- was adhered to pretty generally for the first fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, and it was not until 1862 that the homestead or free home for the settler theory supplanted it. Since 1862 the government pursued a programme of development, seeking to distribute as large a portion of the public domain as possible among settlers who would occupy and develop it. Only recently has the importance of preserving what ic left of the public lands for the benefit of the country at large been recognized and steps taken to withdraw forest, coal, oil and other mineral lands and sites on which water power may be developed. As a result of the conservation movement a considerable portion of this area has been temporarily withdrawn from settlement, the total withdrawals exclusive of small tracts withdrawn for military reservations, lighthouse stations, etc., amounting to 294,000,000 acres. The withdrawn area includes, of course, the national forests, which aggregate approximately 160,591,576 acres, exclusive of forest reservations in Porto Rico.

The following table shows the area of the public domain by states and territories on July 1, 1911:

According to statistics based on passports, 588,354 foreign workmen were

ployed in Germany in 1910.

em