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PREFACE.

This volume was prepared by the codification committee of the Public Land Commission, which was created by an act of Congress approved March 3, 1879 (Statutes at Large, Vol. 20, p. 394), and continued by an act of Congress approved June 16, 1880 (Statutes at Large, Vol. 21, p. 245).

It contains the existing legislation of Congress of a general and permanent nature concerning the disposition and survey of the public domain. The present laws have been compiled in an orderly manner, but without changing either their substance or text. Each general subject of legislation is collated in a separate chapter, but the sections are, for convenient reference, numbered consecutively throughout the volume. Under each section complete references are given to the antecedent legislation upon the same subject and out of which said section has grown. Copious citations are also made under each section of all decisions construing the same in any manner, and embracing decisions by the Federal courts, the supreme courts of the several public land States and Territories, the Department of Justice, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

All legislation of a local or temporary character has been omitted from this volume. The same appears in a second volume, wherein the entire chain of Congressional land acts is arranged chronologically for each State and Territory, and properly connected. It contains a table of authorities, wherein all judicial and executive decisions bearing upon each subject-matter are cited.

WASHINGTON, December 1, 1880.

J. A. WILLIAMSON,
CLARENCE KING,
J. W. POWELL,
THOMAS DONALDSON,
A. T. BRITTON,

Commissioners.

V

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SECTION 1. The Secretary of the Interior is charged with Supervisory authe supervision of public business relating to the following thority of Secresubjects:

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Second. The public lands, including mines.

2 Stat. 716; 5 id. 107; 9 id. 395; R. S. 441. Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498; Maguire v. Tyler, 1 Black, 195; Snyder v. Sickles, 8 Otto, 203; Wolsey v. Chapman, S. C., Oct. T., 1879, in manuscript; Patterson v. Tatum, 3 Saw. C. C. 164. 3 Op. Att. Gen. 137; 12 id. 250. 2 Laws, Instructions and Opinions, 104; 1 Lester, 681. Hesters v. Brennan, 50 Cal. 211.

SEC. 2. He shall grant warrants to parties entitled to land heretofore or hereafter given by the United States for military services.

2 Stat. 717; R. S. 456.

tary.

Power to grant military bounty

land warrants.

tions.

SEC. 3. Copies of papers filed in the Interior Department Exemplifica. and remaining therein shall be authenticated under the hand of the Secretary and the seal of the General Land Office.

3 Stat. 721; 5 id. 111; R. S. 460.

Authority to

SEC. 4. The bonds of surveyors-general shall be executed take bonds from and delivered to the Secretary of the Interior.

surveyors-gen

eral.

Shall complete public land surveys.

Power to dis

fices.

3 Stat. 697; R. S. 2215. U. S. v. Tingey, 5 Pet. 115; U. S. v. Stephenson, 1 McLean, C. C. 462; Farrar v. U. S., 5 Pet. 373. SEC. 5. He shall take the necessary measures for the completion of the public-land surveys.

5 Stat. 384; 19 id: 121; R. S. 2218.

SEC. 6. He shall discontinue the land office in any district continue land of wherein the public lands are reduced to less than one hundred thousand acres, and shall give notice at what convenient existing land office such residue shall be subject to sale. 5 Stat. 455; R. S. 2249; Mathews v. Zane's Lessee, 5 Cranch, 95; same case, 7 Wheat. 164.

Allowances to local offices.

Repayment of purchase money.

Remedial authority under treaty of 1854.

Correction

of

erroneous entries.

Appraisement

and sale of town

SEC. 7. He shall make a reasonable allowance for office rent for consolidated land offices, and may approve the employment of clerks by the register.

12 Stat. 131; R. S. 2255.

SEC. 8. He is authorized to repay the purchase money, fees, commissions, and excess payments in cases where the lands have been erroneously sold and the title cannot be confirmed.

4 Stat. 80; 11 id. 387; act June 16, 1880; R. S. 2362. 4 Op. Att. Gen. 277. Decisions Sec. Int., Aug. 17, 1849; July 23, 1864; April 15, 1878; Aug. 5, 1878; May 7, 1879; Nov. 20, 1878; July 1, 1879; July 29, 1879; Aug. 12, 1878; Jan. 8, 1880.

SEC. 9. He is authorized to permit innocent parties who purchased and located claims arising under the treaty of September thirty, eighteen hundred and fifty-four, to perfect their entries with cash or military bounty-land warrants. 17 Stat. 340; R. S. 2368. Decisions Sec. Int., July 6, 1876; July 19, 1879; May 6, 1880.

SEC. 10. He is authorized to allow erroneous entries of lands sold at private sale and warrant locations to be corrected; and this authority extends to patented cases upon surrender of the patent with satisfactory relinquishment of title indorsed thereon.

3 Stat. 526: 4 id. 301; 10 id. 257; R. S. 2369, 2370, 2371.

SEC. 11. When, in the opinion of the President, the pubsite reservations. lic interests require it, he shall cause town-site reservations to be surveyed into lots; shall fix their cash value by ap praisement of disinterested persons; and, after offering same at public entry to the highest bidder, shall prescribe regulations for sale of the residue at private entry at not less than the appraised values. All such sales shall be conducted by the register and receiver of the proper land district.

Authority to survey and plat a city or town.

1 L 0

12 Stat. 754; R. S. 2381. U. S. v. Hare, 4 Saw. C. C. 653.

SEC. 12. He may. cause a survey and plat to be made of a city or town, if within twelve months from its establishment on the public domain the parties interested do not file in the General Land Office the showing required by law; and thereafter the minimum price of lots included therein shall be increased fifty per centum.

13 Stat. 344; R. S. 2384.

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SEC. 13. He may vary the subdivisional surveys in the Authority to State of Nevada from à rectangular form to suit the circum- vary subdivis stances of the country.

14 Stat. 86; R. S. 2408. Heydenfeldt v. Mining Co., 3 Otto, 634. SEC. 14. He may authorize the geodetic method of survey in Oregon and California.

9 Stat. 496; 10 id. 245; R. S. 2409.

ional surveys in Nevada.

Geodetic sur. veys in Oregon and California.

SEC. 15. He may direct a departure from the rectangular Departure from mode of survey in the State of California.

10 Stat. 245; R. S. 2410.

rectangular surveys in California.

SEC. 16. He may direct compensation by the day for sur- Pay for surveys veys in Oregon and California.

10 Stat. 247; R. S. 2411.

SEC. 17. He may prescribe regulations for the location and patenting, free of expense, of any military bounty-land warrant transmitted for that purpose to the General Land Office.

9 Stat. 521; R. S. 2437.

Decision Sec. Int., March 1, 1876.

by day in Oregon and California.

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SEC. 18. He may authorize issue of patents in cases of Patents to issue lost military bounty-land warrants.

3 Stat. 317; R. S. 2439.

on lost land warrants.

SEC. 19. He shall cause new bounty-land warrants to be May issue new issued in lieu of lost or destroyed warrants, and shall prescribe regulations for the prevention of frauds.

12 Stat. 90; 18 id. 111; R. S. 2441, 2442.

land warrants in lieu of those lost.

SEC. 20. He shall issue patents to the heirs of persons en- Patents to heirs titled to bounty lands.

of warrantees.

dication.

5 Stat. 650; R. S. 2443. SEC. 21. Conjointly with the Attorney-General and the Board of adjuCommissioner of the General Land Office, he shall prescribe regulations for the equitable decision of suspended entries of public lands and of suspended pre-emption claims, and adjudicate in what cases patents shall issue upon the

same.

9 Stat. 51; 10 id. 258; 11 id. 22; 18 id. 50; 19 id. 244; R. S. 2450, 2451.

SEC. 22. He shall have exclusive control of the Yellow- Yellowstone stone Park, with authority to lease portions thereof.

17 Stat. 33; R. S. 2475.

Park.

SEC. 23. He shall make accurate lists and plats of the Swamp and swamp and overflowed lands granted to the several States overflowed lands. and transmit same to the governors thereof; and at the request of the governor of any State in which such lands are situate, he shall cause patents to be issued conveying to said State the fee-simple of said lands.

9 Stat. 519; R. S. 2479, 2480. Railroad Co. v. Smith, 9 Wall. 95;
French v. Fyan, 3 Otto, 169; Martin v. Marks, 7 id. 345.
Op. Att. Gen. 253. Clarkson v. Buchanan, 53 Mo. 563; Master-
son v. Marshall, 65 id. 94; Funkhouser v. Peck, 67 id. 20; Busch
v. Donohue, 31 Mich. 481; Kile v. Tubbs, 23 Cal. 431; Kernan v.
Griffith, 27 id. 87; Fremont Co. v. R. R. Co., 22 Iowa, 91; R. R.
Co. v. Brown, 40 id. 333; Page Co. v. R. R. Co., 40 id. 520; Ed-

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