being the practice, as indicated in the foregoing, only to advance the lines where settlements are extending on arable lands. These fields, in genial climates and inviting localities, are now freely open to homestead settlements. We have surveyed acres enough to meet the demands of the multitudes that may settle upon them, each individual having the means of appropriating to his own use a farm marked out at large cost, and established with professional precision at public expense. A wise, liberal, munificent Government offers to every citizen, and to those who have taken the requisite step to become such-to the poor, the rich, all alike, a farm of liberal dimensions, and all at nominal prices, with the sole stipulation of five years' continuous settlement from date of entry. The labor called for is designed to operate directly to the advantage of the settler in making for him a comfortable home, and indirectly to the benefit of the country by adding to the aggregate wealth and prosperity of the republic. When the labor thus required is done, then the settler will get a feesimple for 160 acres.

In well-settled communities an eighty-acre tract, well worked, is a handsome competence, so that, at the end of the five years' toil, the original settler may sell one-half of his tract, retain his farm, and in this way increase his active means, while in the progress of time and events, proceedings, under the impulse of necessity or interest, would lead to a duplication of the farms, and corresponding labor increase on the present surveyed domains.

In favoring measures that will concentrate settlements we give strength to local communities, and as the surveyed fields fill up, the surveyor, instruments in hand, will advance onward to establish his lines to meet increasing requirements.

The question has been raised in behalf of settlers whether a person who has availed himself of the benefits of the homestead, and pays for his claim under the eighth section of the act, can thereafter enter other land under pre-emption, provided he has never had the benefit of the latter statute.

On this point it has been ruled that where a party legally entitled makes an entry under the homestead law of May 20, 1862, and thereafter, at any time before the expiration of five years, shall come forward, make satisfactory proof of his actual settlement and cultivation to a given day, and then pay for the tract, the proceedings merely consummate his homestead right as the act allows; the payment being a legal substitution for the continuous labor the law would otherwise exact at his hands.

A claim of this character is not a pre-emption, but a homestead, and, as such, will be no bar to the same party acquiring a pre-emption right, provided he can legally show his right in virtue of actual settlement and cultivation on another tract at a period subsequent to the consummation of his homestead.

Cases have arisen where persons have made homestead settlements on unsurveyed tracts, and who, after the lines are established, find the premises falling in two different land districts.

The law restricts such settlements to surveyed lands, and hence, prior to survey, no rights attach under the statute. Then, as the law authorizes only one entry to be made by the same person, it is necessary for the party seeking the benefit of the statute to make the selection of his whole farm within one and the same land district. To entitle an applicant to enter

an adjoining tract for the use of a farm, he must both own and occupy the original farm tract.

In regard to certain classes of contests which have arisen for entries under the homestead, it has been ruled that where two persons apply at the same time for a tract on which neither has settlement and improvements, it must be awarded to the highest bidder-that is, to the party who will pay the highest price for the privilege of entering.

If two parties apply at the same time for a tract on which one of them has actual settlement and improvements, and the other has not, it must be awarded to the former, because it is not the policy of the system to allow one man to appropriate to himself the improvements resulting from the labor of another.

If a tract is simultaneously applied for by two persons, each having settlement and improvements on the same, an investigation is ordered, and if it is found that one has precedence by reason of prior actual settlement and substantial improvements, so as to be notice on the ground to any competitor, the award of entry will be made accordingly; but if neither has such substantial interests, the tract must be conceded to the highest bidder.

In reference to settlements on odd-numbered sections within the limits of withdrawals under railroad grants, the department in June last ruled that the homestead settler's right attaches only from the date of entry, the pre-emptor's from the date of his actual personal settlement. The title in either case is to be consummated by a full compliance with the terms and conditions imposed by law. The grant in aid of the railroad does not embrace lands to which a valid right arising either under the homestead or pre-emption had previously attached; but if such right be abandoned or forfeited, the grant would immediately thereafter take effect; that a pre-emptor cannot change his claim to a homestead entry so as to defeat the right which may have inured to the railroad company before the individual entry was made. If a pre-emption settlement had been commenced upon surveyed lands, it might be entered as a homestead before the right of the company attached, but not at a subsequent date. This ruling has been duly communicated for the government of the district land officers.

CITIES AND TOWNS ON THE PUBLIC LANDS, ACTS JULY 1, 1864, AND

MARCH 3, 1865.

Since the passage of the act of July 1, 1864, "for the disposal of coal lands and of town property in the public domain," proceedings have been initiated to obtain title to the lots lying within the limits of the following towns and cities founded on the public lands, to wit: Petaluma, Mountain View, and Vallejo, in California; Gold Hill, Mineral City, Empire City, Virginia City, American City, Genoa, Washoe, and Austin, in Nevada; Prescott and Colville, in Arizona; Mount Vernon and Pueblo, in Colorado; Otoe, in Nebraska; Yankton, in Dakota; and Warm Springs and Stockton, in Utah.

Some of these municipalities are thriving marts of trade, having had existence as corporations since 1851, containing a population at the present time of several thousand inhabitants.

In some few the proceedings to obtain title to lots are vigorously conducted; while in most of them, only the first steps have been taken. This is owing to some extent to an imperfect understanding of the law on the part of many, and partly to delays always incident to proceedings under an entirely new enactment.

Pursuant to the act of May 23, 1844, the United States made title for the entire site of any town or city to the corporate authorities thereof, or the judge of the county court, in trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town or city, according to their respective interests, and confided the execution of the trust, as to the diposal of the lots or the proceeds thereof, to the legislative authority of the State or Territory in which the same might be situated.

The act of July 1, 1864, repealed the act of 1844, and provides for making title by the United States, to the several lots embraced in any town or city, directly to the purchasers or occupants of the same.

Under the act of 1844, a town site was limited to a maximum of 320 acres, and the price was the usual minimum of $1 25 per acre. According to the act of 1864, the maximum for a site is 640 acres, and the minimum price $10 each for lots not exceeding in area 4,200 square feet.

The supplemental act of March 3, 1865, removed these restrictions as to the size of sites and lots in reference to all towns or cities existing at that date on the public domain, and provided for making title to the same, of such area as they actually possessed at the passage of the act; the uninimum price of lots exceeding in size 4,200 square feet to be subject to such reasonable increase as the Secretary of the Interior might establish.

In pursuance of the authority thus given, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the direction of the Secretary, by circular dated October 20, 1865, prescribed the following minimum prices, to wit: For each lot containing over 4,200 square feet and not more than 12,600 square feet, eighteen dollars; for each lot containing over 12,600 square feet and not more than 16,800 square feet, twenty dollars; and for larger lots the price to be increased two dollars for every additional 4,200 square feet.

In the case of out-lots in any such city or town the minimum of such out-lots to be ten dollars for the first acre and five dollars for each additional acre in such lot.

Instructions have been issued by this office to the registers and receivers of the various land districts, explaining the provisions of these acts, and it is believed they are now generally understood.

By the act of July 1, 1864, it is "provided that any actual settler upon any one lot as aforesaid, and upon any additional lot in which he may bave substantial improvements, shall be entitled to prove up and purchase the same as a pre-emption, at said minimum, at any time before the day fixed for the public sale."

The registers and receivers of the local offices have been instructed that, under this proviso, any actual settler may pre-empt the lot upon which he resides, with one additional lot upon which he has substantial improvements; that no more than two lots can be pre-empted by any one settler; and that the persons claiming the benefit of this proviso must be actual residents of the town or city in which the lots claimed may be situated,

and must have the personal qualifications required by the general preemption laws.

The General Land Office holds that this limitation is clearly to one additional lot, and no more; that, had the legislative mind intended otherwise, the word lots would have been used instead of lot, as it now stands in the statute, but that the department will, in cases where expensive municipal or business improvements, as mills, warehouses, furnaces, machine shops, &c., are shown to exist, take care that no such interests shall suffer by the intrusion of an adverse claim, or purpose to purchase to the prejudice of the owner of such interest, such protection of course to be subordinate to the requirements of law in regard to public sales.

The substantial improvements for the purposes contemplated in this statute are understood to mean permanent buildings or works for municipal use; a mere enclosure by temporary fence for gardening or other incidental use not being considered as satisfying this requirement of law.

In some sections of the country cases of hardship have arisen under the provisions of the statute, and particularly on the Pacific slope, where some of the towns, the claims of which are pending under the acts of July 1, 1864, and March 3, 1865, have considerable population and are located upon old Mexican or Spanish grants but recently declared to be invalid, and where it is represented that many persons own more than two lots each, purchased oftentimes at great expense, and containing valuable improvements, upon which the claimants have paid taxes and received rents for many years, without any question ever having been raised as to their title.

It is claimed that to limit such persons to a pre-emption of but two lots, and to expose to sale other lots worth oftentimes thousands of dollars, and compel them to purchase the second time at their market value, or even to suffer them to pass into other hands without the consent of those who had held them under a title recognised as valid, in many cases for more than fifteen years, would be an act of great injustice.

It is also contended that in most of the new towns of the West, many of the lots and improvements are owned by persons residing elsewhere; that many of the miners in the western Territories purchase lots in the reighboring towns with the view of making their future residences upon them; and that where none but actual residents are allowed to pre-empt lots they must necessarily suffer loss, which in mining towns is oftentimes considerable, unless provision is made, which is recommended, to relieve this particular class of cases, and also to relieve the class possessing more than two lots, where the excess lot is covered by valuable improvements.

The aforesaid act of 1864 declares that where parties have founded or may desire to found a city or town on the public lands, it shall and may be lawful "for them to cause to be filed with the recorder for the county in which the land is situated a plat thereof for not exceeding 640 acres, describing its exterior boundaries," giving the name of the city or town, and exhibiting the streets, squares, blocks, lots, and alleys, the size of the same, with measurements and area of the municipal subdivision, the statement of the extent and general character of the improvements, the map and statement to be verified under oath by the party acting for and in behalf of the persons proposing to establish the city or town, and within one month after the filing there shall be transmitted to the General Land

Office a verified transcript map and statement, accompanied by the testimony of two witnesses, that such city or town has been established in good faith.

It is further required that the exterior lines of the whole city be run and established by actual survey, to be perpetuated by permanent visible objects, and said actual lines by a scientific surveyor must be shown on the map with the exact measurement of the exterior lines, and also of the municipal subdivisions as specifically designated in the statute.

The verified manuscript map is required to be sent to this office with an authenticated copy of the field-notes of survey. The map of survey must also be accompanied by the sworn statements of the parties as to the extent and general character of the improvements," and with it should be transmitted a general map of the region, indicating the locality of the town site as near as possible to some prominent place in the geography of the country.

A point has been made as to the hardship of requiring municipal settlers to pay the cost of survey, while non-residents are permitted to purchase within the limits of a town who may not have contributed to the payment of the expense of such survey. This objection is obviated by restricting the survey to the area applied for by the settlers; yet should there be surplus lots not claimed, the sale of them would enhance the value of the settlement, as increase of population is increase of the productive power, thereby offsetting any inconsiderable outlay originally incurred in founding the city.

COAL LANDS.

The act of July 1, 1864, " for the disposal of coal lands and town property in the public domain," confers authority for offering at public sale to the highest bidder, in suitable legal subdivisions, portions of the public domain embracing coal beds or coal fields at a minimum price of twenty dollars per acre, any lands not thus disposed of to be thereafter liable to private entry at that minimum.

The supplemental act of March 3, 1865, provides, in the nature of a special pre-emption, for entering coal lands at that minimum, in quantities not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres, by citizens of the United States, bona fide engaged at the date of the act in the business of coal mining on the public lands, for the purpose of commerce.

A few entries of coal tracts have been made in California, in the counties of Contra Costa and Alameda, under the supplemental act of March 3, 1865, and are now undergoing official examination.

The coal of these mines is said to be excellent, and the market demand for it unlimited. It is quite apparent, however, that there are many places embracing coal beds and coal fields where the supply of coal is neither so extensive nor the quality so good, yet in which the scarcity of timber for fuel, and other causes, will lead to its being mined for the purposes of commerce. There are doubtless mines of this character which were thus worked at the date of the supplemental act, the claimants of which have taken no steps to enter them pursuant to that law.

Whilst the lands subject to entry under these acts are of every variety of value. from the best coal lands, in convenient localities, to those of the most inferior quality, in almost inaccessible places, the minimum at which