be proved up before Major Cullen, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Paul. This was done, and the amount allowed the Iowa expedition under Major Williams, was $3,612 43, which is now being disbursed to the privates and officers composing the

same.

Under the act authorizing the Governor to raise a company of mounted men for the defence and protection of our frontier, ap. proved Feb. 9th, 1858, I beg to say that a company of thirty such men, known as the Frontier Guards, armed and equipped as required, were organized and mustered into service under the command of Capt. Henry B. Martin, of Webster City, about the first of March then following, and were divided into two companies, one stationed on the little Sioux River, the other at Spirit Lake. Their presence afforded security and gave quiet to the settlements in that region, and after a service of four months, they were duly disbanded.

Late in the fall of the same year, however, great alarm and consternation was again felt in the region of Spirit Lake and Sioux River settlements, produced, as represented to me, by the appearance of large numbers of Indians on the border, whose bearing was insolent and menacing, and who were charged with clandestinely running off the stock of the settlers. The most urgent appeals came to me from these settlers, invoking again the protection of the State. From the representations made to me of the imminence of their danger, and the losses already sustained, I felt it my duty to summon into the field once more the Frontier Guards, adding ten more men to their number. After a service of four or five months they were again discharged, and paid in the manner prescribed in the act under which they were called

out.

It is believed that this company afforded the needed protection, and saved, it may be, our hardy border settlements from another inhuman butchery.

The expense of these two expeditions has cost the Treasury of the State $19,800 paid, and about $1,200 or $1,500 unpaid, of contingent expenses, which did not seem to be provided for in the law, growing out of services rendered in procuring the necessary equipments and outfit, and the transporting and disbursing the money, &c., &c.

These claims, duly authenticated, have been placed in the hands

of our Representatives in Congress, to the end that the State may be reimbursed. It is understood that this can only be done by getting through Congress a special act for that purpose.

I need not say that I opened a correspondence, both with the President of the United States and the Secretary of War, upon the subject of our exposed frontier, explaining to them the character of our difficulties, and respectfully solicited that protection which the Federal Government is bound to extend to the whole line of our borders. I received strong assurances from the President that this should be done, and a partial promise from the Secretary that he would establish a garrison at some point between Fort Ridgley and Fort Randal, that should sufficiently guard and protect our frontier. Whether this has been done or not, I am not advised.

RAIL ROADS.-The establishment, at as early a day as practicable, of a system of railway locomotion over the State, uniting county with county, and one neighborhood with another, and thus linking together not only the four corners of the State with bands of iron, but putting us in connection with all the States east and south of us, is a matter of so much importance that few men, of any section or party, would wish to record themselves against it.

Their social and commercial advantages have been tested by millions in this country and in Europe, and they are forcing themselves upon the recognition of every civilized nation. We have a system of near 3,000 miles of railway projected, admirably adjusted to accommodate every part of the State, with only four hundred miles constructed.

Had we the means to complete the entire system, it would cause a wonderful transformation to take place in the settlement of our prairies, in the development of our coal mines and other mineral, in stimulating the productions of the soil, as well as the various branches of operative industry.

But great and obvious as are these advantages, there are just grounds for apprehending they will be for some time postponed to us. They cannot be built without large amounts of money. Capitalists are disinclined to invest in this direction any longer, it is claimed by many that the State ought not to give its aid; county subscriptions are now adjudged unlawful, and although this description of improvements are peculiarly adapted to the wants and

the interests of the masses, they never yet have been prevailed upon to do much for enterprises of this kind. In this attitude of affairs, the question may well be propounded, how are our railroad schemes to be carried forward? The few enterprising men in the State who are engaged in this work unaided, cannot accomplish the task. A suspension would be disastrous to the best interests of the State. Already, it is known that large numbers of emigrants have located in adjoining States because of their superior advantages over us in railways. This subject is of no ordinary import, and is mentioned not because I have any specific recommendation to make, but for the purpose of asking your serious and earnest attention to our real condition in this respect, to the end that you may, in your combined wisdom, devise some method by which this work may be progressed, that the people of this State may have, under a system of completed railways, all the benefits and advantages enjoyed by the citizens of other States.

In regard to the four roads receiving land grants from the General Government through the State, as the trustee, it will be remembered that the State in the execution of this trust, imposed among others, the following condition: "That in case either of said Railroad Companies shall fail to complete and equip seventyfive miles of its road within three years from the 1st day of December, 1856, then and in that case it shall be competent for the State of Iowa to resume all rights conferred upon the Company so failing, and to resume all rights to the land thereby granted, and remaining undisposed of by the Company so failing to have the length of road completed in manner and time as aforesaid."

If after a full and careful investigation and making all due allowances for the stringency of the times, it shall appear that any of these Companies have failed to comply with the requirements of the law and the just expectations of the people, and are now unable, either through mismanagement or other cause, to go forward with the great work committed to their charge, then it will become your duty to make such disposition of the lands granted to such delinquent Company or Companies, as shall secure to the State the benefit of the grant, and give to the people along the contemplated lines all the advantages of a direct eastern outlet that they would have possessed if such default had not been made. I cannot dismiss this subject without advising the passage of an act that shall require a majority of the Board of Directors of all cor

porations organized under and in virtue of the provisions of our laws, to reside and keep their office of business within the State. CAPITOL BUILDING.-This structure was erected at the expense of the School Fund, borrowed by six gentlemen of Des Moines City, for that purpose, for the re payment of which with ten per cent. interest, they gave mortgages on their individual property.

The amount of money thus obtained from the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with ten per cent. interest up to this date, (not paid) is $52,130. The building cost, including the lots and interest, up to this date, $53,733.61. The divided public sentiment in regard to the particular site it should occupy, precluded the possibility of building it at the common expense of the town or county. These men are quite unable to supply the State with so large and costly a building for nothing. The State ought not to consent to become a pensioner upon their bounty. It cannot do so without compromising its magnanimity. She ought to own this building--it is convenient, substantially built, and worth the money it cost. The State has been in the occupancy of the building over two years--made important changes and improvements upon the same--inconsistent, perhaps with the legal rights of the proprietors--and it will now answer the purposes of a State House for years. In view of these facts, it is gravely suggested whether the interest and honor of the State would not be quite as well subserved, by directing the mortgages against these men to be cancelled, assume the liabilities to the School Fund, and pay to them the difference between this fund and the cost of the building.

JAMES D. EADS, LALE SUPERINTENDENT, &c.-Under your legislation I was instructed to appoint a Commissioner to settle with the sureties of this defaulting officer, upon the basis therein specified. Robert A. Russell, Esq., a competent person, was assigned to this duty, but failed, after several attempts, to negotiate such settlement upon any terms whatever; whereupon I directed suit to be instituted against the said Eads and his securities for some $71,880 97, being the amount of his supposed defalcation. Although the cause was expected to have been tried last month, the result has not yet transpired.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.-Since your last session, this work has not progressed as rapidly as could have been desired. The year 1858 was mostly employed in preparing and publishing the result of the survey in the eastern portion of the State, which made a large vol

ume, in two parts, and has drawn from the scientific world the most satisfactory testimonials of its merits. Charged, as I was, with the distribution of some two or three hundred copies of this work in foreign lands, I was able, through the agency of the Smithsonian Institution, and the assistance of Professors Hall and Agassiz, to make such a distribution as will, in my opinion, tell largely for the interest of the State.

A list of the nations, societies, institutions and scientific journals, &c., to which copies were sent, will be found in a communication from the State Geologist to the Executive, herewith submitted for your inspection, and from which you will also learn other details in respect to the present condition, as well as important suggestions bearing upon the future of this enterpise.

At the time of the last appropriation the State was more largely. in arrear with the expenses of the survey than was anticipated; the payment of which absorbed so much of the appropriation, that there was not a sufficiency left to form an effective organization for working out the Geology of the western part of the State, and hence in part the little progress made the last two years.

It is due, however, to Professor Hall, to say that he has had two assistants in the field, working out the details of some portion of the State before explored, and which will make a part of the materials of the second volume.

In addition to this, he has already published a supplement to his first volume, containing descriptions of new species of crinoidea and other fossils, chiefly from the Burlington and Keokuk lime-stones, which will give this branch of the survey a very prominent position, and make the carboniferous limestones of Iowa classic localities.

It is but just toward the west half of the State, that this survey should go forward. The very favorable reception which the first volume has met with on the part of the public-the numerous applications for it from all sections of the country, which could not be supplied, and the highly commendatory notices of it which I have received by letters from scientific gentlemen, make it but too evident that the money expended on this work has not been lost to the State.

PENNSYLVANIA.-This State has been pleased, in the face of the Constitution, to levy a tonnage duty upon all the treght that passes over her great central railroad, whether transported east or west, by residents or non-residents.