be submitted to Congress; or the total amount required to complete any projected work may be submitted and appropriated payable in annual instalments by the Secretary of the Treasury. The salaries of such engineers should be sufficient to avoid all extras and contingencies such as commutation for fuel and quarters, service-rations, mileage, etc.; but the actual expenses of travel should be allowed upon the certificate of the officer incurring them, as is done at present in some of the civil bureaus.
The topography of the United States readily admits of such a plan, which is similar to that existing in France,—a country no larger than the basin of the Ohio, yet its expenditure for river improvements and canals up to 1870 is estimated at $240,000,000, which is more than double that of the entire United States, although the latter is fifteen times as large. The annual reduction in the price of articles of first necessity, due to the saving in cost of transportation in consequence of its river improvements, is stated at §5,000,000. The population per square mile is over one hundred and eighty, while that of the Ohio basin is about forty. The expenditures for this latter district are less than $10,000,000, and for the entire country, up to 1882, about $111,000,000.
The relations of several of the bureaus as shown by their expenditures from 1789 to 1882 are as follows:
| Public Buildings | $88,135,270 |
| Mints, etc. | 5,373,000 |
| Rivers and Harbors | 111,300,000 |
| Light-Houses and Beacons | 78,778,000 |
| Roads and Canals | 19,890,000 |
| Forts, Arsenals, and Armories | 91,356,000 |
| $394,832,270 |
These might readily be grouped into two classes,—viz., a Bureau of Transportation and a Bureau of Architecture. The last item, "Forts," etc., should be placed in a Bureau of Military Affairs. The various surveys now being conducted under four departments should be consolidated into a Bureau of Information and Surveys.
There is no reason why the graduates of the Military and Naval Academies should not be men selected from the best technical schools and colleges in the United States, instead of, as now, from so wide a limit as is permitted under the present low requirements for admission. As a matter of fact, some of the matriculates have completed a college course before entering, and hence have at once a great advantage over their classmates in the contest for standing and honors. Moreover, the time spent in repeating the more elementary parts of the course is virtually wasted in waiting for the less favored to overtake his more fortunate brother. If instruction, were confined to purely military matters, and selection were made, after rigid examinations, from the alumni of civil institutions, the length of the course might be reduced to two or at most to three years, it could be made more thorough and technical, and a much larger amount of practical work could be done in chemistry, electrics, signalling, etc., with superior results as to scholarship and military skill and at much less expense to the government.
