Arizona citizen., 1878-07-12
PUBLIC LAND SURVEYS.
Some Interesting Facts and Data The Enterprise Gently Corrected.

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 surveys in this Territory had beer
 spent south of the Gila river, and tha
 too for personal ends.
 This statement was no doubt, prompt
 ed by the bitter feeling of sectional Jealousy and personal enmity that
 burns in the bosom of its author. We have given the matter some attention and have secured some interesting facts and official data which demonstrate the falsity of tho Enterprise statement and the ignorance ot the enterprise editor on this subject.
 The Commissioner of the General
 Land Office at Washington issues year ly his Annual Report which among other things contains the Annual Re. ports of the different Surveyor-Gen. erals, giving the locality, extent, nature and cost of public surveys, by whom executed, &c., and also the amount of land entered at each land office for the proceeding fiscal year We have ex- amined these reports, carefully from the time Arizona was made a distinct surveying district, and the figures we give below are therefore authentic.
 By law Arizona is divided into two land districts, viz: The Prescott and and the Gila. The first named includes all that portion of the Territory lying north of the line known as the First Standard Parallel North, and embraces the land subject to entry al Prescott The second comprises the section south of said Standard Parallel, and includes the lands subject to entry at Florence The dividing line between the two is a line of the public surveys that runs across the Territory, east and west, from a point on the Colorado river some seven miles north of La PaZ, passing about eighteen miles south of Wickenberg, five miles north of Camp Mcdowell through Camp Apache Res ervatioH to the New Mexican bound ary. Therefore the Gila or Florence Land District includes all of Pima and Pinal, nearly all of Yuma and Mari copa counties, and the southeastern portion of Yayapai, thus containing the entire Gila, Salt river, San Pedro, Santa Cruz and other valleys, and the Prescott District comprises all off Mojave, most of Yavapai and small strip along ,he northern boundary of Yuma and Maricopa counties. The Great Colorado Plateau, which enters he Territory near th3 northwestern corner an1 trends southeasterly across its entire width covers much more than half of the Prescott district, and although valuable for the timber and grass it yields, it has but little agri- cultural land comparatively, and has not been surveyed therefore except along the Little Colorado. In the light of the above facts, the following figures may be clear.
 From 1871, the year in which al Surveyor-Generals office was opened in Arizona to June 30, 1877, date of the last Annual Report, there has been in public surveys in the southern land district. S65, ,349; and in the northern district, s52, That is to say in the four counties of Yuma, Maricopa, Pinal and Pima, and DOT ton of Yavapai. there has been ex- pended bu; $l2,0O0 more than in Mohave and Yavapai counties.
 Again taking the townships surveyed and counting all, whether entire or sec.ionized or not, the fol lowing is found to be true, and can bo readily verified by inspection of any late map showing all the public sur veyS.
 In Mohave county there has been forty-five townships surveyed, but most Of them not seclionized In Yavapai, eighty townships mostly sec ionized. In Maricora, thirty-nine townships mostly sectionized. In Pinal, l
  twenty-eight townships mostly sec Pima, fifty-three; Yuma, thirty.
 The Surveyor-General is by law au- thnrized to survey only certain classes of lands and at all times to give pref erence to the wants of actual setllers. The best way, therefore, to have land is for the settlers to notify 1 the Surveyor General office that they desire to procure titles, and their claims will be attended to as soon as and instructions will al- Iow. IL may not be uninteresting in his regard to know that during the last fiscal year while they were several applications filed for surveys in the Gila District there was not a single one received from settler in the northern district, and Deputy Sur 1eyor Foster of Prescott, informed the in Tucson that he did not know where surveys were needed in lis section.
 Another thing, the Florence office vas opened in 1874, and from that ime till June 30, 1877, there had been entered there 54,s9s acres of land of III classes, and during the same time ,2. .532 acres were entered at Prescott. md this notwithstanding that the odd