Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota, and the Territories of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Any person desiring to make entry of desert land in any of these States must file with the officers of the land office for the district wherein the land is situated a declaration showing that he is a citizen, or intends to become a citizen, that he intends to reclaim the tract of land-giving its situation-which he enters; that the land will not produce crops without irrigation; that there is no timber growing upon it, and not to his knowledge any kind of valuable mineral deposited in it. It is necessary also to procure at least two disinterested and credible witnesses to make affidavit that the land is actually desert land. These witnesses must not only bring presumptive proof of their honesty, but must also show that they are acquainted with the situation and character of the land of which they speak. The applicant for the land must then pay for it at the rate of twenty-five cents per acre, and he is not allowed to take up more than one section. If within three years after this application he can make satisfactory proof that he has irrigated the land, the applicant can receive a patent for the land on paying the additional sum of $1 therefore. It is provided that the right to use water from any contiguous natural sources for irrigating desert land thus taken up shall depend upon bona fide prior appropriation, and shall not in any case exceed the amount of water actually needed for reclaiming the land. The only public land that can be sold to parties not actual settlers is that situated in the State of Missouri.

House of Representatives is the name of the lower House of the Legislature in many of the States, also of the corresponding House of the United States Legislature. Article 1, section 2, of the Constitution, treats of the House of Representatives. Its members are apportioned on the basis of population, the larger States thus having greater influence than the smaller. (See Apportionment; Congress; Senate.) Its members are elected for two years. The salary of Rep

resentatives is $5,000 a year, $125 a year additional for stationery and newspapers, and mileage at the rate of twenty cents a mile to and from Washington at every session of Congress, Unexcused absence causes a deduction from the salary. To be elected a Congressman a person must be at least twenty-five years of age, and he must have been seven years a citizen; he must, moreover, at the time of his election be an inhabitant of the State for which he is chosen. The House of Representatives chooses its Speaker and other officers. The power of the Speaker is enormous. Unless otherwiseordered by the House (which is seldom the case) he appoints all committees and the method of the House in transacting its business renders the committees of first importance. All measures are referred to the standing committees, and the power over the life or death of a bill is practically unlimited. A majority of the members elected constitute a quorum. The House has sole power of impeachment; all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House, and on it falls the duty of electing the President of the United States when the vote of the electors fails to result in a choice. Representatives being elected more frequently than Senators, and being elected directly by the people, are apt to be more thoroughly informed of the present feelings of their constituents, and are thus more apt to sway by them than the Senate. The latter is more conservative. These differences have led to the terms popular or lower House, and upper House as applied to the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively. Each Territory has a delegate in the House, with the right to debate on matters pertaining to his Territory, but no vote.

Houston, Samuel, was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1793. In his early life he had wandered to Tennessee, where he had lived three years among the Cherokee Indians. He was then, successively, "a gallant soldier in the War of 1812, an Indian agent, a lawyer, district attorney, major-general of militia, member of Congress and Governor of Tennessee." About

1830 he again suddenly joined the Cherokees, among whom he lived three years as a chief. Leaving them, he and a number of other adventurers set out for Texas with the intention of causing a revolution there and ultimately annexing it to the United States. Texas declared her independence in 1836, and Houston, though at first compelled to retreat before a large force under Santa Anna, finally succeeded in dividing and utterly defeating the opposing army. This assured the independence of Texas, which was during the next year acknowledged by the United States. Other powers soon did the same. Houston had meanwhile been elected President of the new republic. He served in that capacity in 1836-8 and 1842-4. Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845. Subsequently Houston represented her in the Senate in 1846-59, and in 1859 he was elected Governor. Though elected as a Union man, it was his lack of energy that threw Texas into the hands of the secessionists. In 1861 he resigned, and soon after, in 1863, he died.

How Gold and Silver Coins are Tested.-The testing of gold and silver coins, which takes place yearly at the Philadelphia mint, is called the trial of the pyx. It is a custom of very ancient origin and derives its name from the pyx or chest in which the coins to be examined are kept. The examination is made in the presence of the director of the mint and a board of examiners. For each delivery of coins made by the chief coiner a certain number are reserved for trial and deposited in the pyx under the charge of the superintendent of the mint and the assayer. Coins from the coinage of other mints are transmitted quarterly to the Philadelphia mint. The examiners make a certified report of the trial after examination. If this shows the coins to be within the limit of tolerance in fineness and weight it is filed, but if not the fact is certified to the president, and he has power to order all the officers implicated in the error thenceforward disqualified for holding their offices.

The word pyx is derived from a Greek word meaning a box, and is applied in the Roman Catholic Church to the box in which the sacred host is kept, and mariners also apply it to the receptacle wherein the compass is suspended. In early times the mint master in England was simply a person under contract with the government for the manufacture of the coinage, and periodical examinations were consequently necessary to see that the terms of the contract were complied with. The mint master is now an officer of the crown, but the manner of conducting the ceremony is substantially unchanged. The finished coins are delivered to the mint master in weights called journey-weights-that is, 15 pounds troy weight of gold, containing 701 sovereigns, or 1,402 half-sovereigns; of silver 60 pounds troy. From each journey-weight a coin is taken and placed in the pyx for the annual trial. The examination of the coins is made by the Goldsmiths' Company, under the direction of the crown, in the presence of the "Queen's remembrancer," who administers the oath to the jury and presides over the proceedings. The coins are compared with pieces cut from trial-plates of standard fineness, which are in keeping of the "warden of the standards." If the coins are found to be of standard fineness and weight, within certain limits, a statement to that effect is testified to by the jurors, and handed over to the treasurer. The coins to be tested are kept in the ancient chapel of the pyx at Westminster Abbey, in joint custody of the lords of the Treasury and the comptroller general. This custom was first ordered during the thirty-second year of the reign of King Henry II. (1154-1189), and took place occasionally in subsequent reigns, whenever royalty chose to order it. King James was present at one of the ceremonies in 1611. There was one held at the exchequer office July 17, 1861, and the next February 15, 1870. During the year 1870 a coinage act was passed by Parliament providing for an annual trial of the pyx, and the ceremony has been observed each year since then.

Hub of the Universe.-A name applied to Boston, Massachusets, in derision of its pretensions to great importance.

Hudson's Bay Company.-This company was started in 1670 by means of a charter granted to Prince Rupert and seventeen other noblemen and gentlemen by Charles II. The charter secured to them the absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignity, and exclusive traffic of an undefined territory which, under the name of Rupert's Land, comprised all the regions discovered, or to be discovered, within the entrance of Hudson's Strait. In 1821 they obtained a license for the monopoly of trade in the vast regions lying to the west of the original grant. At this time the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Fur Company amalgated, and the monopoly of trade was held conjointly. In 1838 the former company obtained a renewal of the license for themselves alone, which ran until 1859. Since that date the district has been open to all.

Hunkers. A name applied to the faction of the Democratic party in New York opposed to the Barnburners. They were the conservative wing, and were in harmony with the Democratic national administration. Subsequently they were known as the Hards, or Hard Shells. (See Free Soil Party.) The origin of the name Hunkers is uncertain. This name has at varions times been applied to the conservative wing of the Democratic party in other States.

I am a Republican, Who Carried His Sovereignty Under His Own Hat-This remark, originally made by A. W. Campbell, of West Virginia, in the Republican national convention of 1880, was quoted with approval by George William Curtis, on June 4, 1884, at the Republican national convention held in Chicago. The occasion was similar, namely the opposition of a motion declaring that every member of the convention was in honor bound to support the candidate it might select, whoever he might be, and that no man who would not agree to give such support was entitled