cases of suspended entries adjudicated upon principles of equity and justice, and the adjudications submitted to the board constituted of the Secretary of the Interior and the Attorney-General, under sections 2450 to 2457 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, as amended by act of Congress of February 27, 1877. Of these adjudications 366 were approved and 27 rejected by the board. Lists of these cases are attached on pages 186 and 200.

It devolves upon this division, as fast as surveys of public lands are made, to open tract books, in which are to be noted in pencil the smallest legal subdivisions established by the surveys and the areas thereof; to make entries therein of all private claims, reservations, pre-emption and homestead filings, cash and other entries, selections by States and corporations under Congressional grants, warrant and scrip locations, and other disposals; to examine the greater portion of the same, with regard to the regularity of the papers returned, and the sufficiency of the proof, where proof is required; to see that any errors therein are rectified, preparing and sending out the necessary correspondence for that purpose, meantime holding the cases suspended, and when they are brought to the condition proper for final action in this office, then to approve the same for patenting, or hold them for cancellation, as the case may be; to investigate and pass upon a multitude of contested cases; to receive and submit appeals to the head of the department, the appellate authority, and communicate the result to the proper officers and the parties concerned.

In addition to this, there is much business of a miscellaneous nature, not falling under any of the classes referred to, as the work necessary for disposing of abandoned reservations, under special acts of Congress, or for giving effect to such acts in favor of private parties having rights to be adjusted with regard to public lands, or for restoring to market lands withdrawn from time to time from various causes, as an example of which the case of the public lands in the Southern States now being offered at public sale pursuant to the act of June 22, 1876, may be mentioned.

For some time past the clerical force has not been sufficient to meet the demands of the current business, and it has consequently fallen in arrears. The number of letters remaining unanswered in this division is 2,833, a number somewhat greater than the average number referred to the division monthly during the last fiscal year. The number of suspended cases, requiring more or less examination and further action before they can be disposed of, including a large number of contested cases, is 30,267. There are some 28,000 entries remaining unposted in the tract books, besides a considerable quantity of miscellaneous work, as State selections and approvals of selections to be entered on the books, new tract-books to be opened and recent surveys noted therein, &c., which ought to be brought up, but which, unless the clerical force is increased, must fall still further behind as time advances.

Grants for railroads, wagon roads, and canals.

In July, 1872, a division was organized in this office to which are referred all questions growing out of the adjustment of railroad, wagon road, canal, and other internal improvement grants.

The examination of settlers' claims in conflict with those of railroad companies forms a large part of the business of this division.

The reports of construction of land-grant railroads during the fiscal year show an aggregate of 244.30 miles, which, taken with those pre

viously reported (14,344.18 miles), and adding for error in previous statement of length (40 miles), make a total of 14,628.48 miles of such roads, distributed as follows:

During the fiscal year there were certified for railroad purposes 606,340.65 acres, showing a decrease as compared with the previous year of 94,451.31 acres; 5,628 acres were certified for canal purposes, and none for wagon roads.

The lists of selections now awaiting examination cover 1,394,275.04 acres. Fifteen patents were issued, covering 125 pages of record, and fourteen approved transcripts, covering 103 pages of record.

In their appropriate place in this report will be found carefully prepared tables showing the condition of the adjustment of the various land grants at the close of the fiscal year.

The number of contested cases received from the organization of the division, in 1872, to June 30, 1878, was 3,069, of which 2,049 had at the latter date received final action and been closed; 745 had been acted upon but not finally disposed of, and 275 remained on which no action. whatever had been taken by the office.

Of "ex parte" cases 4,063 were received up to the close of the fiscal year, 2,525 of which had at that time been finally acted upon and closed, 462 had received action but yet remained open, and 1,076 had received no official attention save their entry upon the books of the division.

The number of letters received during the fiscal year was 4,472, and of letters written 5,601. The record of the latter covered 5,085 pages.

Changes of rulings and decisions affecting railroad grants.—Since my last annual report no important decisions affecting railroad interests have been made by this office. Several have, however, been rendered by the department, as follows:

Case of Streeter vs. Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company. Held, That the act of April 21, 1876, being a remedial statute, must be construed liberally, and, whether constitutional or not, must be enforced by the department; that its effect was not at all diminished by the fact that patent for the land claimed had already issued to the company, and that under it second patents must issue, when necessary, to parties whose entries are reinstated and confirmed under the act.

Case of Dudymott vs. The Kansas Pacific Railway Company. Held, That under the act of July 1, 1862, lands not sold by the company within three years after the completion of the road became open to settlement and subject to pre-emption and sale by the government like other lands. This decision affects all the companies known as the Pacific companies, obtaining grants by the acts of July 1, 1862, and July 2, 1864, or on similar conditions, viz, the Union, Kansas, Denver, Sioux City and Pacific, Central, and Western Pacific. The question of its applicability to

the Central Branch Union Pacific and Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, in Nebraska, is yet under consideration.

Case of Tome and others vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Held, That, though the company obtained a grant by the act of July 27, 1866, the lands upon which it would operate were not identified until the date of the passage of the joint resolution of June 28, 1870, authorizing the construction of the road upon the line designated on the map filed in the department June 30, 1867, and that the rights of all persons who were actual settlers at the date of the joint resolution were protected.

Case of Hogland vs. Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Held, That lands within limits of railroad grant, and also embraced by the Sisseton, Wahpeton treaty, signed (as amended by Congress) May 2-19, 1873 (the Indian title not having been extinguished at the time the grant was made, although extinguished prior to the attachment of the company's right by definite location of road), passed to the company under its grant.

Case of Stainbrook vs. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company. Held, That by a correct interpretation of the phrase "under the decisions and rulings of the Land Department," as used in the second section of the act of April 21, 1876, all entries made either in pursuance of special instructions, or in accordance with the rulings in force at the date of said entries, are confirmed. Also, that, under the "Boyd" decision of April 28, 1871, and until the "Catlin-Frank" decision of May 1, 1873, it was the ruling that if a homestead claim had attached to land at the date of definite location it was excepted from the grant, whether such claim were valid and subsisting at that time or not, and that entries allowed between the dates named, and in accordance with such interpretation, are confirmed by the act of April 21, 1876.

The text of these decisions will be found below.

Readjustment of grants under decisions of Supreme Court.-Under the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company vs. The United States, which established the principle that in railroad grants indemnity was not given for lands within the limits of the grant disposed of prior thereto, a readjustment of these grants was made necessary. Under the most favorable circumstances the progress of such work would be apparently slow, though proceeding with all the dispatch compatible with correctness, yet it has been unavoidably procrastinated and retarded by the smallness of the clerical force of the division. Up to June 30, 1878, the grants for the Hastings and Dakota, Wisconsin Central, California and Oregon, Saint Paul and Pacific, Saint Vincent Extension (constructed road only), Southern Pacific (main line), and Saint Joseph and Denver City Railroad Companies had been carefully examined aud the quantity of lands each company was entitled to under the decision ascertained.

Lands within railroad grants reserved for adjustment of foreign grant claims.-The Supreme Court decision in the case of Newhall vs. Sanger, following the Osage ceded lands decisions, had particular reference to the attachment of railroad rights upon lands covered at the time of the railroad grant by a foreign-grant claim and settled the question adversely to the railroad company, holding that lands reserved for the adjustment of a foreign-grant claim at the time of making the railroad grant did not pass under the latter, and, on their release from reservation, by adjustment or rejection of the foreign-grant claim, became a part of the public domain.

This decision is of importance in the adjustment of railroad grants in the State of California, and will render necessary a great amount of care

ful work. Prior to its rendition the department had held that the railroad grant attached to such lands on their release from reservation, and under such construction thousands of acres were patented to the companies, to which, under the before-mentioned decision, they were not entitled. Consequently each grant will have to be examined in connection with the foreign-grant claims, and lists of lands excepted and erroneously patented made up for appropriate action thereon. So far the lands embraced in one grant claim only, the Manuel Diaz, have been ascertained and the matter laid before the Secretary, and another, the Moquelamos, is partially prepared. The former conflicts with the grant to the Califorfornia and Oregon, and the latter with that to the Western Pacific Railroad.

The records of this office are not perfect enough to establish the reservations of lands for the many foreign-grant claims which, genuine or fraudulent, were presented and fought to a termination, successful or otherwise, after legal conflicts many years in duration. These can only be established from the records of the surveyor general of California, who has been called upon to give the necessary information. Some idea of the extent to which these grant claims may or do conflict with railroad grants may be formed from the statement that the confirmed and surveyed claims alone are 576 in number.

Restoration of Missouri River, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad lands.-By the act of March 3, 1877 (19 Stat., p. 404), part of the act making a grant of lands to the State of Kansas to aid in the construction of the Kansas and Neosho Valley Railroad was repealed, the company, on surrender of the lands not disposed of by it, and payment of moneys received for those disposed of, was released from the obligations imposed by the grant, and the lands surrendered were to be restored to market, by proclamation of the President, and opened to settlement and purchase under the homestead laws only.

Up to the close of the fiscal year the company had not received its clearance because of questions regarding the validity of its reassignment of the lands to the United States in view of the mortgage previously made by it to secure its bonds. Since the opening of this year, however, these questions have been settled, the surrender accepted, and lists of the lands affected have been prepared with a view to their restoration in a short time.

Restoration of lands in Iowa withdrawn for Mississippi and Missouri Railroad.-An act approved June 15, 1878, (U. S. Statutes, second session Forty-fifth Congress, pamph. edition, p. 133), directs the restoration to settlement, under the pre-emption and homestead laws, of all vacant unappropriated lands heretofore withdrawn for the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, in Iowa, situated more than twenty miles from the amended line of route as located under the act approved June 2, 1864, and not including any lands embraced in the confirmatory act of January 31, 1873.

A complete list of all vacant lands to be restored under this act has been prepared, and embraces a little less than five hundred acres (474.84). Yet to ascertain the quantity an examination of the records regarding every tract between the old 15 and outside the new 20 mile limits of the grant had to be made.

Right of way railroads.-The number of railroad companies claiming the benefits of the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat., p. 482), granting to railroads the right of way over the public lands, made manifest the need of instructions under which a consistent and uniform practice, in conformity with the requirements of the law, would be obtained. Accord

making the affidavit), and on the exact route shown on the map; that in its construction the road does not deviate from the line of route approved by the Secretary of the Interior, and that the company has in all respects complied with the requirements of the act of March 3, 1875, granting right of way through the public lands.

Any variation within the limits of one hundred feet from the central line of the road as located will not be considered a deviation from such line, but where, upon construction, it is found necessary to transgress the limits within which the company has right of way, the company must at once file proper map of amended route for approval.

VI. If the company desires to avail itself of the provision of the law which grants the use of "ground adjacent to the right of way for station buildings, depots, machine shops, side tracks, turnouts, and water stations, not to exceed in amount twenty acres for each station, to the extent of one station for each ten miles of its road," it must file for approval, in each separate instance, a plat showing, in connection with the public surveys, the surveyed limits and area of the ground desired. Such plat

must bear

First. Affidavit of the chief engineer or surveyor by whom or under whose supervision the survey was made, to the effect that the plat accurately represents the surveyed limits and area of the grounds required by the company for station or other purposes, under the law (stating the purposes), in (giving section, township, range, and State or Territory); that the company has occupied no other grounds for station or other similar purposes upon public lands within ten miles of the grounds designated on the plat, and that, in his belief, the grounds so represented are actually and to their entire extent required by the company for the necessary uses contemplated by law.

Second. Certificate of the president of the company, attested by the secretary under the corporate seal, that the survey of the tract represented on the plat was made under authority and by direction of the company by or under supervision of its chief engineer (or person making the survey), whose affidavit is attached; that such survey accurately represents the grounds actually and to their entire extent required by the com-· pany for station (or other) purposes in (giving section, township, range, State or Territory), allowed by the provisions of the act of Congress, approved March 3, 1875, granting to railroads the right of way through the public lands; that the company has no station or other grounds upon public lands within a distance of ten miles from the grounds represented on the plat; and that the company, by resolution of its board of directors of a certain date (giving the date), directed the proper officers to present the plat for the approval of the Secretary of the Interior in order that the company may obtain the use of the grounds under the law above referred to.

VII. Registers at the various land offices are directed to require that such papers and maps herein referred to as may be filed with them for transmission to this office shall conform to these regulations. Where differences of opinion may arise between themselves and the persons filing papers, respecting the proper construction of these requirements, the papers may be transmitted with letter stating the differing opinions.

They are also instructed, in any case where information is received by them of the construction of railroads within their districts, of the rights of which they have no official knowledge, to promptly advise this office of the facts in order that proper information or directions in the matter may be given them.

Approved.

MARCH 22, 1878.

J. A. WILLIAMSON.

Commissioner.

C. SCHURZ, Secretary of the Interior.

Payment for surveys of railroad lands.-The sundry civil appropriation act of July 31, 1876 (19 Stat., p. 121), contains the requirement

That before any land granted to any railroad company by the United States shall be conveyed to such company, or any persons entitled thereto under any of the acts incorporating or relating to said company, unless such company is exempted by law from the payment of such cost, there shall first be paid into the Treasury of the United States the cost of surveying, selecting, and conveying the same by the said company or persons in interest.

This enactment, buried in an appropriation bill, escaped notice, and was not brought to my attention until a short time ago, since which no patents for lands, liable to such costs, have issued.

The question of exemption from payment of such costs is now before the department for consideration and action.

Railroad grants lapsed by reason of non-completion of roads.-In my last report I submitted a list of railroad grants which had expired by