for connecting it with our country by railroad, and equally foolish to acquire it without making provision, in the treaty of acquisition, for reducing all land-titles to the size of a single township, in consideration for the superior value given to the property by the annexation, and for annulling all land-titles under which there is not an actual occupancy. The Spanish courts concede to government this power over private rights, and for this reason a treaty of acquisition from Mexico would prevent the confusion that now exists in California, and enable American settlers to locate understandingly at once. All titles should continue to be subject, as they now are, to the right of the miner to enter in search of precious metals, thus no conflicts in relation to the rights of land-owners and miners could arise. The principle on which the Mexican mining laws and the California mining customs are established should be recognized by the United States. But that right of entry would not arise until the construction of a railroad should afford the means of actually reducing the country to possession, which Spain never has accomplished, and Mexico never can accomplish.
APPENDIX.
A.
MINERIA REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF SONORA.
Among the five-and-twenty states and territories that compose the Mexican confederation, there is no other which contains in its respective territory the like wonderful mineral riches which abound in the state of which we treat. This would appear almost fabulous; but there is proof enough from the testimony of many residents of that state, and from the assertion of travelers, from the evidences which the archives of the various missions exhibit, and from the royal registry of mines (reales de minas), and, lastly, from the indubitable fact of the production of great quantities of gold and silver from the mines and placers of this