Landslide

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

or sliding or settling down of a considerable portion of earth from a higher to a lower level; the earth which so slips or slides. Landslides are produced by earthquake disturbances, or by the action of water undermining the beds which fall. Notable landslides have occurred in the Rocky Mountains. LANDS, PUBLIC, lands which government owns and disposes of by sale or otherwise to States and individuals These lands have been acquired by cession from other nations. yielding to Congress by the various carefully guarded. States of the rights to western territory was an important influence in the formation of the Constitution. 1781 and 1788 all the States having claims in the West ceded them to gress, which immediately divided 787 into terra ies under the famous west Ordinance of 1787. Public have been added to by Louisiana Purchase (1803), the cession of Florida (1819), the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo with Mexico (1848), and the purchase of Alaska (1867). That portion of the lands held by the government and not sold is what is usually known as the "public lands." The policy of the government was at first to sell large blocks of land by contract, then to sell in small lots and on credit, and after 1820 to sell for cash in lots to suit the purchasers. In 1862 Congress passed the "Homestead Law" providing that any person could secure 160 acres of public land if he settles on it for five years and improves the property. Under this law more than 85 million acres of public land has passed to individuals. The same act appropriated to the States a tract of the public land on which to build and maintai agricultural colleges. In this way 10 more millions of acres were disposed of. In addition to the selling of lands under general laws Congress has frequently made grants of land to persons as a reward for public services. The greater part of 10 million acres was given to soldiers of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; 60,000,000 acres were set aside to be granted to veterans of the Mexican War. Still another method of disposal has been to grant the lands to the different States sometimes for the purpose of building canals, or the building of drains and and levees. Even before the Civil War the policy was begun of granting lands to the various railroad companies to encourage to encourag the building of the roads. But the largest cession was made in favor of the trans-continental railroads which were lover of the being built during and after the Civil ich were Har the Civil War. In all Con Congress granted to these railroads alone the stupendous total of ted to these 155,000,000 acres, an area equal in ex- Bous total of tent to some of the European countries. equal in ex Congress continued its policy of handing For countries. of handing out the public lands with a lavish hand lavish hand the until in President Roosevelt's adminis- Hva adminis tration a halt was called and many and many . fraudulent schemes by land agents deagents delargely tected, some public land reclaimed, and cimed, and The the remainder of it more closely and lonely and According to a recent statement of ex-Secretary of Secretary of the Interior Lane the United States, on ed States, on Between July 1, 1918, possessed 222,448,225 acres of public lands plus that held by the held by the Con- government in Alaska, which amounted en amounted them to about 350,000,000 acres. In the year in the year North - ending July, 1918, the Land Office had nd Office had lands disposed of nearly 10,000,000 acres and had received $5,431,827. acres an