Questions as to the best methods of utilization and disposal of the vacant public lands have been of great prominence ever since the birth of the Republic, and the inauguration of a wise and judicious system of land laws that has been deemed one of the noteworthy achievements of the early part of the century. Many questions, however, are still far from being finally settled; for with the rapid changes incident to the growth of the nation, the settlement of the Mississippi Valley, and the construction of many transcontinental lines of communication leading to the highly cultivated and thickly populated lands of the Pacific Coast, new conditions have arisen to which former precedents and customs are no longer applicable.

While the well-watered lands stretching from the Ohio to the Missouri were open to settlement, the problems were mainly those of administration; but now that the humid lands are disposed of, and pioneers are pressing forward to every part of the vast interior region where water and not land is the first item of value, it becomes necessary to modify the treatment of the public lands and to introduce better methods. Such necessary improvements, or the introduction of systems leading to greater prosperity, must depend to a large extent upon the possession by the general public of broad yet accurate knowledge of the chief characteristics of the remaining public domain. This knowledge can be obtained only by a thorough scientific examination and an impartial statement of the facts as ascertained by disinterested observers.