Legislature, however, did not respond, and a possible addition of 46,080 acres of lands for the state was not secured.
Probably it was just as well that the right of Oregon to the salt springs grant was forfeited. Oregon's excellent mineral springs are not of the character or type of the salt springs of the Ohio valley in connection with which and similar springs this grant to states became customary. Nor have the Oregon springs had a similar function in the early economic conditions of the state. It was not strange that Governor Whiteaker under the peculiar circumstances existing in Oregon should have anxiously sought instructions before making selections. And it may be possible that Governor Grover's zeal in finding a basis for Oregon's right to the salt springs grant was due more to his laudable ambition to get a full share of the public lands for the state rather than to carry out the purpose for the public welfare under which the custom of the grant originated.[1]
The Swamp Land Grant. The application of the customary swamp land grant to conditions existing in Oregon was attended by an even nearer approach to chicanery than the realization on the salt springs grant would have been. Oregon has very little surface area that approximates in character to the lands bordering on the Mississippi River in the States of Louisiana and Arkansas, to which the swamp land grant was first applied. Moreover, it has but a small extent of surface like that of the lake and marsh districts of glacial origin to be found in Minnesota, the state with which Oregon was linked, in the extension of the swamp land grant. Under these circumstances we expect to find Governor Whiteaker, upon whom the selection of the Oregon swamp lands devolved, again in trouble when he took up his task of the selection of them.
The act of Congress of March 12, 1860, extending the provisions of the swamp land grant act to Oregon and Minnesota further prescribed that the selection of the swamp lands," from lands already surveyed, at the time of the passage of the act
- ↑ Governor's Message, 1874, p. 15.
