  Larson (1981) first noted a scaling relation between masses and sizes in
molecular clouds that implies that these objects have approximately constant
column densities. This original claim, based upon millimeter observations of
carbon monoxide lines, has been challenged by many theorists, arguing that the
apparent constant column density observed is merely the result of the limited
dynamic range of observations, and that in reality clouds have column density
variations over two orders of magnitudes. In this letter we investigate a set
of nearby molecular clouds with near-infrared excess methods, which guarantee
very large dynamic ranges and robust column density measurements, to test the
validity of Larson's third law. We verify that different clouds have almost
identical average column densities above a given extinction threshold; this
holds regardless of the extinction threshold, but the actual average surface
mass density is a function of the specific threshold used. We show that a
second version of Larson's third law, involving the mass-radius relation for
single clouds and cores, does not hold in our sample, indicating that
individual clouds are not objects that can be described by constant column
density. Our results instead indicate that molecular clouds are characterized
by a universal structure. Finally we point out that this universal structure
can be linked to the log-normal nature of cloud column density distributions.
