have entire charge hereafter
of such work, especially as the Hydrographic Office of the Navy
Department is now and has been for many years engaged in making
efficient maps entirely similar to those prepared by the Coast Survey.

I feel it my imperative duty to call attention to the recommendation of
the Secretary in regard to the personnel of the line of the Navy. The
stagnation of promotion in this the vital branch of the service is so
great as to seriously impair its efficiency.

I consider it of the utmost importance that the young and middle-aged
officers should before the eve of retirement be permitted to reach a
grade entitling them to active and important duty.

The system adopted a few years ago regulating the employment of labor
at the navy-yards is rigidly upheld and has fully demonstrated its
usefulness and expediency. It is within the domain of civil-service
reform inasmuch as workmen are employed through a board of labor
selected at each navy-yard and are given work without reference to
politics and in the order of their application, preference, however,
being given to Army and Navy veterans and those having former navy-yard
experience.

Amendments suggested by experience have been made to the rules
regulating the system. Through its operation the work at our navy-yards
has been vastly improved in efficiency and the opportunity to work has
been honestly and fairly awarded to willing and competent applicants.

It is hoped that if this system continues to be strictly adhered to
there will soon be as a natural consequence such an equalization of
party benefit as will remove all temptation to relax or abandon it.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the situation of
the numerous and interesting branches of the public service connected
with his Department. I commend this report and the valuable
recommendations of the Secretary to the careful attention of the
Congress.

The public land disposed of during the year amounted to 10,406,100.77
acres, including 28,876.05 of Indian lands.

It is estimated that the public domain still remaining amounts to
a little more than 600,000,000 acres, including, however, about
360,000,000 acres in Alaska, as well as military reservations and
railroad and other selections of lands yet unadjudicated.

The total cash receipts from sale of lands amounted to $2,674,285.79,
including $91,981.03 received for Indian lands.

Thirty-five thousand patents were