Mr. CONNESS. I only wish to say now that this bill contains more than has been stated by the Senator, who regards it as a bill to enable the miner engaged in vein running to obtain a title to his mine when that vein has been welldefined. It does more, I say; it proposes to allow the Interior Dept to segregate the mining from the agricultural lands in the vast and mighty area that is now unsurveyed and not subject to sale, and in which no title is obtainable to lands for any purpose. There is nothing better understood, apprehend, when it is brought to the minds of men, than that improvements of a permanent character for the purposes of vine growing, or for agriculture in all its depts. horticulture, pomology, &c., cannot take place nor be made with security unless there is a title to the land upon which they are proposed to be made. Those improvements never were made and never can be made and never will be made, to the extent that a good form of society requires, until title is obtained to the land on which they are to be made, so that there will bean absolute ownership in the party that invests his labor and his capital; an, sir, a society without the refinements and domestic provisions that the class of im provements to which I have referred furnish hardly can be called a society at.all. This segregation of the vast masses of the public domain within what is called, in general terms, the mining region, is so necessary that that particular part of this bill is of the greatest possible consequence to the entire population. One of the greatest va aries of this letterwriter, as I noticed while the letter was being read, is that he says that the entire area of the country is worth nothing except to the miner alone for mining purposes. Why, sir, it contains the finest inn 5 under the sun, within, in many instances, the finest climates on the face of the earth. But he says not.an inch, or some small part, to1,000 acres of it would be occupied by men unless for its mining value. Why, sir, I have my residence and home in California at an elevation in the mountains of 2500 feet above the level of the sea. There in my garden grow all the finer qualities of the grape that we import from urope. The Royal Muscat of Alexandria, that is grown in every other country than ours under glass, is grown there without any respect to season whatever. So with all the finer varieties which I might go on to name; and a country like that capable of production of that kind, is to be left forever and ever without the possibility of acquiring an ownership to it simply because here and there there is a mine! Sir, [am in favor of miners. I believe them in a new country and in our new country to be a people particularly and especially deserving encouragement and protection and by no vote nor act of mine would I invade any right of theirs. We do not propose to sell, as is proposed to be sold in the House bill referred to by the Senfrom Nevada, known as Julian's bill, the entire mining area by the acre; we do not propose to interfere now with the disposition of what are known as the placer mines: but we propose, for the purpose of giving a certainty of ownership, for the purpose of inviting capital in the production of the precious metals, to ascertain vein mines, and to give a title to the actual occupier. I say to the honorable Senfrom Indiana, who has always, I concede and I am glad to pay him the could pliment in this connection seen with a clear eye what was best for that country, and has heretofore expressed and does now express the most liberal opinions in regard to it, that this bill proposes in legislation very little, and that little going to the confirmation of what these people themselves have done, not changing the valuable system they have established in one single jot or tittle, but carefully going thus far an nofurther; undIcannot imagine any greater boon to the occupants and owners of mines, and to the occupants and owners of other improvements in those mighty and extensive areas, than to give them gradually some means ofobtaiuing an absolute ownership and title.