but when we find only one settler to the square mile, the country, from necessity, must be sparsely populated; and this condition must hold for so long a period that detriment on a large scale must be felt. That the donation act has had, therefore, its disadvantages with its advantages no one I think will doubt,—taking the present as the standpoint from which to view the prosperity of the country. This, coupled with the fact that the lands were taken without any regard to the points of compass—thus ignoring our system of land surveys, so simple and yet so beautiful,—I can not but regret that the action of our Government could not have foreseen some of the detrimental results into which its generosity has led it. Of course, it is among the things of the past, but not on that account the less to be regretted. The experience in this matter may not, and, probably, never will find any field for application—for the spirit of all preëmption, homestead, and donation laws, as since passed, has studiedly held two things in view, namely, the minimum amount of land commensurate with the object to be attained by their cession and the most rigid adherence to the points of the compass in their location. In referring to the donation act, I do not cavil at the generous action of a generous government—for I but too well appreciate that it has had the effect to open to our grasp a golden continent, with avenues of trade and with wealth—which has built up a line of battlement of half a million of Freemen; not probably, in looking at the results attained, it might seem ungenerous to object, at this late date, to any of those measures that assisted even in part to bring about this result. But I am rather disposed to believe that the agricultural districts of the Pacific were occupied and filled more in consequence of the gold discoveries and to supply their wants than from the spirit which pervaded the donation acts;
