crossed by the boundary, but good and well cultivated farms are occasionally found among the uplands, particularly those lying north of the Boston Mountains. In the last-named section springs of good water are abundant.

Survey of Cherokee lands in North Carolina.

In the last annual report of this office may be found, on pages 70 and 71, a statement of the partial survey which had been made of Cherokee lands in North Carolina, under the act of Congress of June 23, 1874. A contract for further surveys was subsequently entered into with M. S. Temple, esq., of Greenville, Tenn., and the following instructions were given to him by this office, under date of the 8th April, 1878, viz:

Having entered into contract with you this day for the survey of the lands of the Eastern Cherokee Indians, recently purchased from William H. Thomas, and described in the deed dated October 9, 1876, executed by William Johnston, L. M. Johnston, James W. Terrell, and Thomas D. Johnston to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, copy of which has been furnished you, you will be governed in the execution of the work contracted for by the terms of said contract and the following special instructions, to wit:

The lands to be surveyed are situated in Graham, Jackson, and Cherokee Counties, in the State of North Carolina, and include sixty tracts, as enumerated in the deed above referred to.

It will be your duty to trace and mark each of the tracts described in the said deed, in accordance with the descriptions of the same as shown by the county records, by planting appropriately marked posts, of good material, of the size prescribed in instructions from this office dated March 30, 1875, for the survey of the Qualla boundary. In regard to running, marking, and describing the lines, corners, and topographical features, you will be governed by said instructions of March 30, 1875, so far as the same may be applicable.

In carrying out your contract it will be necessary to retrace and mark the several tracts as they were originally marked, and for that purpose it will be necessary to procure transcripts from the records of the several counties, showing the description of the original lines. The expense of obtaining said transcripts must be covered by the $1,500 allowed for these surveys, there being no other means available for paying for the same.

In a letter to this office in regard to these surveys the Commissioner of Indian Affairs states that "the object of the surveys recommended by this office was to obtain a more perfect description of the lands to be conveyed, that the same might be incorporated in a new deed, to be substituted for the one herewith, conveying the lands directly to the Indians in fee simple."

Unless a contract can be made for the survey of these lands so as to furnish a welldefined, accurate, and complete description of all the tracts embraced in said deed, the purpose for which a survey was requested will not be reached.

With a view, therefore, to affording an accurate description of each tract, you will so describe the initial point of each survey and all the lines and corners thereof that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may be enabled, when conveying the lands to the claimants, to describe each tract accurately by metes and bounds. Your field notes should show the course and distance from the initial point of each survey to a corner of an adjacent survey, or to some prominent landmark. Where a line is a common boundary, either wholly or in part, between two claims, the extent to which said line forms a common boundary must be expressed in the field notes and indicated upon your diagrams. The diagrams of the separate tracts should show the connections with surrounding claims, also the numbers thereef. In addition to the diagrams of the individual tracts accompanying the field notes, you will submit connected plats of the claims in each county.

The form of field notes of the survey of a private claim given on pages 66 to 68 of the manual of "Instructions to Surveyors General" is applicable to the surveys under your contract, and you will adopt the same.

In transcribing your field notes upon the paper furnished by the department, you will confine the writing between the red lines; the narrow column on the left is for the measured distances. Both margins are to be left blank (see sample herewith).

For use in the field and in making returns of your surveys to this office, I transmit, by this day's mail, one dozen field books, four quires of field-note paper, and five yards of tracing linen; the latter for the connected diagrams required by these instructions.

Returns of surveys under this contract have been made, and are now undergoing examination in this office.

Survey of townships 18 and 19 north, range 1 west, Michigan.

Under authority of act of Congress approved February 16, 1877 (19 Stat., p. 231), townships 18 and 19 north, of range 1 west, Michigan, were surveyed by T. Gale Merrill under contract dated March 31, 1877, entered into with this office, there being no surveyor general in Michigan, and returns thereof were made July 17, 1877, and being found correct were approved August 3, 1877.

In many cases the corners of the original survey, formerly reported as fraudulent, were found, and under instructions from this office the surveyor adopted such corners where found in their proper places.

The expense of the survey was $2,136.22, which was paid from the appropriation of $2,500 made for the purpose by said act of February 16, 1877.

The following circular has been issued by this office in reference to the survey of desert lands under the act of Congress of March 3, 1877: DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

UNITED STATES SURVEYOR GENERAL:

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., June 25, 1878.

SIR: The following instructions are issued under the act of Congress approved March 3, 1877, entitled "An act to provide for the sale of desert lands in certain States and Territories." (United States Statutes at Large, vol. 19, page 377.)

By the terms of the act the quantity to be entered by any one person is limited to one section, or to a tract not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, and it is required to be in compact form.

If the land is surveyed it is required to be particularly described, and if unsurveyed it shall be described as nearly as possible without a survey.

As the land to be entered under this act is public land, and no provision is made for any departure from the rectangular system in the survey of claims under said act, the claimants on unsurveyed land will be required to take their claims by legal subdivisions when the lines of public surveys shall have been extended over the same. You will, therefore, instruct your deputies that in subdividing townships when they reach one of these desert land claims they will extend their lines in the usual manner, and from the best information obtainable represent by an outline sketch the approximate limits of the reclaimed tract, or the tract in process of reclamation, so that the same may appear upon the township plat when prepared in your office.

In case a survey is asked of claims under said act which are isolated from the regular progress of public surveys, and the land intervening is not of a character authorized to be surveyed under existing laws, in order to reach such claims it will be necessary to extend the nearest standard line to the neighborhood of such claims, and then extend the proper township and section lines sufficiently to embrace such claims.

This extension will only be authorized in cases where a person has made satisfactory proof to the register and receiver of the reclamation by conducting water upon the tract within the period of three years from the filing of his declaration therefor in cases where the party desires to make payment and obtain patent for the land, and after the evidence of reclamation has been submitted to this office and authority is given for such extension.

Very respectfully,

J. A. WILLIAMSON,

Commissioner.

The divisions of this office having charge of matters relating to surveys and draughting report with regard to the character and extent of the work done during the fiscal year, and the present condition of the work, as follows, viz:

In the draughting division: 1. Work on the annual map of the United States.

2. Two special maps of States where the lines of public surveys have been completed, viz, Michigan and Wisconsin.

3. Volumes of field notes arranged according to States and Territories, and particular bases, principal meridians, townships, and ranges, indexed for easy reference-61.

4. Railroad maps constructed with lateral limits of land granted to different railroad companies and copies of same for land offices; also tracings of railroad maps-151.

5. Exemplifications of plats, copies of town sites, tracings of private land patents, and copies of same in record books; also other records prepared for applicants under act of Congress approved July 2, 1864–1,508. In addition to this, surveys of islands and lakes have been tested, areas calculated, and diagrams of same made; also other miscellaneous calculations and protractions.

6. The work of this division, in consequence of the insufficiency of the draughting force has constantly been accumulating, and is now greatly in arrears. In order to keep up the current work called for by the different divisions of the office a certain class of work had to be abandoned altogether. This work waiting to be completed and absolutely necessary for the best interest of the office is as follows:

1. Arranging and indexing field notes and plats.

2. Twenty-nine field note diagrams forming the index volume.

3. Sixteen railroad volumes. These are important as they are the only evidence the office will have giving a complete history of each road. The railroad withdrawal maps in use by the different bookkeepers are so injured by incidental wear and tear that unless this work is soon completed it will be difficult to reproduce some of the maps at all.

4. The tracing of the annual map of the United States was progressing very favorably when, in consequence of the reduction of force, it had to be abandoned. Very nearly two-thirds of this work has been completed.

The following table exhibits the comparative progress of surveys and the disposal of public lands during the period of eleven years ending June 30, 1878, also cost of surveys:

I now invite attention to the operations of the last fiscal year for disposing of the public lands. This object was pursued through the agency of 98 district land offices, in the methods contemplated in the laws providing for sales at ordinary private entry, for pre-emptions, for entries for

homestead, timber culture, town-site, and mining purposes, and in the laws making grants for specific objects and exceptional provisions with regard to abandoned military and other reservations. The first mentioned method of disposal is confined to lands which have been brought into market at public sale and not in any manner withdrawn therefrom, this being the simplest method known to the land system, and one in which if the proceedings are regular, and the money paid, the patent conveying the fee simple issues as a matter of course. The quantity of land thus disposed of during the fiscal year, with the additional quan tity embraced in pre-emption cash entries allowed during the same period, in cash entries allowed in commutation of homesteads, and in other cash entries, allowed under special laws, of lands not subject to ordinary private entry, makes up the total of cash entries before given as 877,555.14

acres.

Pre-emptions.

Under the pre-emption laws, public lands are disposed of to actual settlers only, they being allowed a preference right to purchase the lands covered by their settlements on prescribed conditions and in limited quantities. Cases frequently arise under these laws involving very nice and difficult questions. A special division of the clerical force of this office is charged with the duty of examining matters involving the principle of pre-emption under existing laws, as entries under the "preemption" and town-site laws, sales of Osage Indian trust and diminished reserve lands, and claims of parties who purchased from Mexican grantees or their assigns, lands within grants subsequently rejected, or which were excluded from final survey of confirmed grants. The condition of the work in the pre-emption division is thus stated, viz: Contested cases, in divsion, undecided July 1, 1877 ......... Received during the year ending June 30, 1878................

Total

Decided during the year
Referred to other divisions

In division, undecided July 1, 1878.

249

532

781

278

15

293

488

During the year there were closed on the docket by decisions of the department, or on failure to appeal from decisions of this office, 318

cases.

By a comparison with the statement made one year ago (Annual Report, 1877, page 94), it will be seen that, while the number of new cases received has been about the same, there have been fewer cases by over one hundred decided during the past year, and, consequently, the statement of undecided contested cases indicates an increase of nearly one hundred per cent.

This is mainly the result of the reduction in the clerical force of the division. With the present force it will require nearly two years to adjudicate the cases on file July 1, 1878, without examining a single case received since that date.

In regard to the pre-emption entries in which there is no contest the increase in arrearages is more marked. At the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1877, there remained in the division undisposed of 415 of these cases; but at the close of the last year we found upon our files, undisposed of, 3,140 cases, as follows:

Not acted upon

Suspended for various causes

2,058 1, 082

During the year three thousand "ex parte" entries were examined and approved for patenting.

The latter covering 4,548 pages of record. Section 2262, Revised Statutes, provides that the affidavit of the claimant in pre-emption cases shall be taken before the register or receiver of the land-district in which the land is situated. This requirement of the law has worked a hardship in many cases which have been brought to the attention of this office. It often occurs that pre-emptors are compelled to travel hundreds of miles in order to comply with this statute, and in many cases parties are delayed in their efforts to enter their claims on account of sickness or other disability, which prevents their attendance at the local office.

The testimony of witnesses in pre-emption cases can be taken before any officer authorized to administer oaths, and by recent legislation the affidavits and testimony of witnesses in homestead cases can be taken before a judge or clerk of any court of record in the county where the land is situated.

I would therefore recommend that section 2262 be so modified that the pre-emptor's affidavit may be taken before a judge, or, in his absence, before a clerk of any court of record in the county in which the land claimed may be situated, as the law now allows of homestead final affidavits and proof being taken.

In reference to the subject of town-sites on the public lands, there has been no new legislation, and no important decisions have been rendered during the fiscal year.

The act of May 23, 1844 (5 Stat., p. 657), which provided for the entry of town-sites at the minimum price, was repealed by the act of July 1, 1864 (section 2382, Rev. Stats.). The last-named act provided for the sale of the lots in any town, which it provided should not contain more than 4,200 square feet each, at not less than $10 per lot. This law had not long been in force when it was found that a statute similar to that of 1844 was demanded by the people. The act of March 2, 1867, (section 2387, Rev. Stats.), was passed, which embodied some of the provisions of the act of 1844, with a few needed alterations and additions as to the number of acres, inhabitants, &c. The inhabitants of hundreds of towns have availed themselves of the privileges of this act, and have made entries of the public lands thereunder.

The principles of the act of 1864 have been in force more than fourteen years, and but six towns-one in California, two in Nevada, and three in Oregon-have filed plats with a view of obtaining lands under its provisions. This law provides for the patenting of each lot by the government, which involves a great amount of labor by the clerical force of this and the district land offices.

More than $100 per acre is realized by the government for any lands sold under this law, and it is natural that the inhabitants of the towns desiring title to the public lands should prefer a cheaper mode of obtaining such title, which is afforded in sections 2387, 2388, and 2389 of the Revised Statutes.

For the sake of uniformity, I would respectfully recommend the repeal of sections 2382, 2383, 2384, and 2385 of the Revised Statutes, with the provision, however, that the six towns which have already filed plats under said act of July 1, 1864, and the act of March 3, 1865, may obtain titles to their lots thereunder, or that the lots not yet disposed of may