and that these lands be brought into market. The leasing
policy drew into the mining regions a population of vagrants, idlers
and gamblers, who resisted the payment of tax on the product of
the mines, and defied the agents of the Government. It excluded
sober and intelligent citizens, and hindered the establishment of
organized communities and the development of the mines. The miners
were violently opposed to the policy of sale, but the evils incident
to the leasing policy became so intolerable that the Government
was at length obliged to provide for the sale of the lands in fee,
which it did by Acts of Congress of July 11, 1846, and March 1 and
3, 1847. The tracts occupied and worked by the miners under their
leases possessed every variety of shape and boundary, but there
were no difficulties which were not readily adjusted under the
rectangular system of surveys and the regulations of the Land
Department. A new class of men at once took possession of these
regions as owners of the soil, brought their families with them,
laid the foundations of social order, expelled the semi-barbarians
who had secured a temporary occupancy, and thus, at once promoted
their own welfare, the prosperity of the country, and the financial
interests of the Government. Under this reformed policy the lead
and copper lands of the regions named were disposed of in fee.

But the gold-bearing regions covered by our Mexican acquisitions
created a new dispensation in mining, and invited the attention of
Congress to the consideration of a new and exceedingly important
question. How should these mineral lands be disposed of? They
covered an area of a million square miles, and their exploration
and development became a matter of the most vital moment, not only
in a financial point of view, but as a means of promoting the
settlement and tillage of the agricultural lands contiguous to the
mineral deposits. President Fillmore, in his message of December
2, 1849, recommended the sale of these lands in small parcels, and
Mr. Ewing, his Secretary of the Interior, urged upon Congress the
consideration of the subject, and recommended the policy of leasing
them; but no attention seems to have been given to these recommendations.
By Act of Congress of September 27, 1850, mineral lands in Oregon
were reserved from sale; and by Acts of March 3, 1853, and of July
22, 1854, they were reserved in California and New Mexico. This
was the extent of Congressi