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standard parallels, sixteen dollars for township, and fourteen dollars for section lines.

SEC. 2406. There shall be no further geological survey by the government, unless hereafter authorized by law. The public surveys shall extend over all mineral lands; and all sub-dividing of surveyed lands into lots less than one hundred and sixty acres may be done by county and local surveyors at the expense of claimants; but nothing in this section contained, shall require the survey of waste or useless lands.

SEC. 2407. Whenever, in the opinion of the President, a departure from the ordinary method of surveying land on any river, lake, bayou, or water course, would promote the public interest, he may direct the surveyor-general in whose district such land is situated, and where the change is intended to be made, to cause the lands thus situated, to be surveyed in tracts of two acres in width, fronting on any river, bayou, lake or water-course, and running back the depth of forty acres; which tracts of land so surveyed shall be offered for sale entire, instead of in half quarter sections, and in the usual manner and on the same terms in all respects as the other public lands of the United States.

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SEC. 2447. In case of any claim to land in any State or Territory which has heretofore been confirmed by law, and in which no provision is made by the confirmatory statute for the issue of a patent, it may be lawful, where surveys for the land have been, or may hereafter be, made, to issue patents for the claims so confirmed, upon the presentation to the Commissioner of the General Land Office of plats of survey thereof, duly approved by the surveyor-general of any State or Territory, if the same be found correct by the Commissioner. But such patents shall only operate as a relinquishment of title on the part of the United States, and shall in no manner interfere with any valid adverse right to the same land, nor be construed to preclude a legal investigation and decision by the proper judicial tribunal between adverse claimants to the same land.

SEC. 2448. Where patents for public lands have been, or may be, issued in pursuance of any law of the United States, to a person who had died, or who hereafter dies, before the date of such patent, the title to the land designated therein shall inure to, and become vested in, the heirs, devises, or assignees of such deceased patentee as if the patent had issued to the deceased person during life.

SEC. 2449. Where lands have been, or may hereafter be, granted by any law of congress to any one of the several States and Territories, and where such law does not convey the fee simple title of the lands, or require patents to be issued therefor, the list of such lands which have been, or may hereafter be, certified by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the seal of his office, either as originals, or copies of the originals, or records, shall be regarded as conveying the fee simple of all the lands embraced in such lists that are of the character contemplated by such act of congress, and intended to be granted thereby; but where lands embraced in such lists are not of the

character embraced by such acts of congress, and are not intended to be granted thereby, the lists, so far as these lands are concerned, shall be perfectly null and void, and no right, title, claim, or interest shall be conveyed thereby.

SEC. 2450. The Commissioner of the General Land Office is authorized to decide upon principles of equity and justice, as recognized in courts of equity, and in accordance with regulations to be settled by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner, conjointly, consistently with such principles, all cases of suspended entries of public lands and of suspended pre-emption land claims, and to adjudge in what cases patents shall issue upon the same.

SEC. 2451. Every such adjudication shall be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, acting as a board; and shall operate only to divest the United States of the title of the lands embraced thereby, without prejudice to the rights of conflicting claimants.

SEC. 2452. The Commissioner is directed to report to congress, at the first session after any such adjudications have been made, a list of the same under the classes prescribed by law, with a statement of the principles upon which each class was determined.

SEC. 2453. The Commissioner shall arrange his decisions into two classes; the first class to embrace all such cases of equity as may be finally confirmed by the board, and the second class to embrace all such cases as the board reject and decide to be invalid.

SEC. 2454. For all lands covered by claims which are placed in the first class, patents shall issue to the claimants; and all lands embraced by claims placed in the second class shall, ipso facto, revert to, and become part of, the public domain.

SEC. 2455. It may be lawful for the Commissioner of the General Land Office to order into market, after due notice, without the formality and expense of a proclamation of the President, all lands of the second class, though heretofore unproclaimed and unoffered, and such other isolated or disconnected tracts or parcels of unoffered lands which, in his judgment, it would be proper to expose to sale in like manner. But public notice of at least thirty days shall be given by the land officers of the district in which such lands may be situated, pursuant to the directions of the Commissioner. SEC. 2456. Where patents have been already issued on entries which are confirmed by the officers who are constituted the board of adjudication, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, upon the canceling of the outstanding patent, is authorized to issue a new patent, on such confirmation, to the person who made the entry, his heirs or assigns.

SEC. 2457. The preceding provisions from section twenty-four hundred and fifty to section twenty-four hundred and fifty-six, inclusive, shall be applicable to all cases of suspended entries and locations, which have arisen in the General Land Office since the twenty-sixth day of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, as well as to all cases of a similar kind which may hereafter occur, embracing, as well locations under bounty land warrants, as ordinary entries or sales, including homestead entries and pre-emption locations or cases; where the law has been substantially complied with, and the error or informality arose from ignorance, accident, or mistake which is satisfactorily explained; and where the rights of no other claimant or pre-emptor are prejudiced, or where there is no adverse claim.

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WYOMING PENITENTIARY.

[From U. S. Revised Statutes, Chapter Two.]

SEC. 1936. The care and custody of the penitentiaries in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado, and the personal property thereunto belonging, and the use and occupation thereof, are transferred to such Territories, respectively, until otherwise ordered by the Attorney General; but the legal title to such penitentiaries and the property shall continue to vest in the United States.

SEC. 1937. The Territories named in the preceding section shall keep and maintain, in the penitentiaries transferred to their custody and control, all persons convicted in such Territories of violations of the laws of the United States, and sentenced to imprisonment therefor, and all persons held to answer for alleged violations of the laws of the United States in such Territories, at the rate and price, to be paid by the United States out of the judiciary fund, of one dollar per day for each person so imprisoned.

ANNUAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR TERRITORIES.

[From U. S. Revised Statutes, Chapter Two.]

SEC. 1939. There shall be appropriated, respectively, for the Territories of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, and Wyoming, annually, a sufficient sum, to be expended by the secretary of each Territory herein named, upon an estimate to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury, to defray the expenses of the legislative assembly and other incidental expenses; and the secretary of each Territory above specified shall, annually, account to the Secretary of the Treasury for the manner in which such sum has been expended.

U. S. MINING LAWS.

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

June 10, 1872. J GENTLEMEN: Your attention is invited to the act of congress approved May 10, 1872, which is as follows, to-wit:

AN ACT TO PROMOTE THE DEVLOPMENT OF THE MINING RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found, to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United States and those who have declared their intention to become such, under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local customs or rules of miners, in the several mining districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States.

SEC. 2. That mining claims upon veins or lodes of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits heretofore located, shall be governed, as to length, along the vein or lode by the customs, regulations, and laws in force at the date of their location. A mining claim located after the passage of this act, whether located by one or more persons, may equal, but shall not excced, one thousand five hundred feet in length along the vein or lode; but no location of a mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim located. No claim shall extend more than three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, nor shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation to less than twenty-five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, except where adverse rights existing at the passage of this act shall render such limitation necessary. The endlines of each claim shall be parallel to each other.

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SEC. 3. That the locators of all mining locations heretofore made, or which shall hereafter be made, on any mineral vein, lode, or ledge, situated on the public domain, their heirs and assigns, where adverse claim exists at the pasage of this act, so long as they comply with the laws of the United States, and the State, Territorial, and local regulations not in conflict with said laws of the United States governing their possessory title, shall have the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of their locations, and of

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