Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/49

Rh debt, $14,712,088.16. Cost of road, $1,202,866.42. Passenger earnings, $34,895.20; freight earnings, $72,822.86; miscellaneous earnings, $5,410.48; total earnings, $113,128.54; operating expenses, including taxes, $114,584.80.

The properties of this road have been inspected and found in good condition.

The business of the company is in a flourishing condition and is increasing rapidly. The net earnings of the company for the fiscal year ending June 30,1880, amounted to $2,158,324.40, being an increase of nearly 50 per cent. over the corresponding period for 1S79, when they amounted to $1,129,365.97.

This road was examined in May, but owing to lack of facilities afforded the inspection was very unsatisfactory.

The business of the company is in a prosperous condition, the net earnings for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, amounting to $1,588,806.05, against the sum of $931,786.40 for the corresponding period of 1879.

The Auditor's report is accompanied by an appendix and tables, containing statements and compilations of facts relating to the Pacific and land-grant railroad companies, the laws affecting them, statements of their affairs, their receipts, expenditures, and operations, the accounts between the United States and the Pacific railroad companies, the condition of the respective land grants, and other matters of interest to railroad companies.

The recommendations of the Auditor as to future legislative enactments in regard to subsidized and land-grant railroads are rospectfully submitted to the consideration of Congress.

The first annual report of the director of the United States geological survey, which I have the honor herewith to submit, is of so unusual an interest that an abridgment of it cannot be undertaken without doing it an injustice. The various geological and geographical surveys and exploring expeditions, which for many years had been carrying on their work without unity of aim and direction, each one operating upon a plan of its own and not unfrequently overlapping and duplicating each other, were at last merged in an homogeneous organization by the act of March 3, 1879. For the first time in our history a geological exploration of the public domain has been organized upon a comprehensive