REFERENCES.

Regulations General Land Office.

Public Land Commission, Preliminary Report, with Testimony, 1880. Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States, Prof. J. W. Powell, 1878, Washington, D. C., as to water supply of the arid regions.

Report upon Forestry, vols. 1 and 2, prepared under direction of the Commissioner of Agriculture, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved August 15, 1876, 1878, Franklin B. Hough; containing statistics of lumbering, laws of States and Territories on forestry, suggestions, and a vast amount of practical information on tree culture in all lands. Also, Report of State Forestry Commissioners.

Report from Committee on Public Lands, first session Forty-third Congress (H. R. 259), on cultivation of timber and the preservation of forests, by Mr. Dunnell, of Minnesota, in reference to the special message of President Grant of February 19, 1874, on the subject.

CHAPTER XXX.

DESERT LANDS.

SPECIAL AND GENERAL LEGISLATION.

The act of March 3, 1875, providing for the sale of desert lands in Lassen County, California, permitted the entry of 640 acres of land, and required that water be put upon the same by claimants, and the land paid for at the rate of $1.25 per acre, within

two years.

March 3, 1877, Congress enacted the "Desert land act," which applies to California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and Dakota. It is for the reclamation of desert lands, an entry of 640 acres being permitted, and three years are given from the date of filing in which to conduct water on the same. At time of filing application 25 cents per acre is to be paid at the district land office, and on proof of compliance with the law, final payment of $1 additional per acre can be made at any time within three years. All lands, exclusive of timber and mineral lands, which will not, without irrigation, produce some agricultural crop, are deemed and held to be desert land under this act. The determination of what may be considered such desert lands is subject to the decision and regulation of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. (See circulars of General Land Office of June 25, 1878, and September 13, 1880.

Under this act, since March 3, 1877, to June 30, 1880, there have been made 2,855 entries embracing 897,160.57 acres; the first payments received (25 cents per acre) being $223,470.72.

For estimates of areas and conditions of desert lands, see "Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States," by Prof. J. W. Powell, 1878; and for details of irrigation and methods, see "Preliminary Report, with Testimony, of the United States Public Land Commission,” 1880.

RESULTS OF THE ACT.

The following table gives full exhibit of totals of operations under this act:

Sales of desert lands under the act of March 3, 1877, to June 30, 1880.

Sales of desert lands under the act of March 3, 1877, &c.—Continued.

CHAPTER XXXI.

PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS.

ORIGIN AND NATURE.

Private land claims are a class of titles situated in different sections of country, now constituting a part of the Union, having their origin under the governments preceding the United States in sovereignty.

In virtue of the treaties of cession hereinbefore shown, the area of the public domain has been increased several times its original extent. This immense increase of national territory embraced numerous individual foreign titles founded on written grants or otherwise, in form extending even to nascent claims resting upon actual settlement before change of government. The whole scope of Congressional legislation thereon shows how scrupulously this Government has made provision for fulfilling treaty stipulations and the requirements of public law, so as to secure to individuals their rights which originated under former governments. No nation has shown a higher sense of justice in this respect or a more liberal spirit. We have acknowledged and carried out the principle that, although sovereignty changes, private property is unaffected by the change, and that all claims in this relation are to be maintained sacred, including those in contract, those executory, as well as those executed. Such are the rulings of boards of commissioners for the examination of foreign titles, and the decisions of the district courts and of the Supreme Court of the United States. These courts in their rulings show how zealously private rights have been vindicated and confirmed, while the records of our Government bear evidence of the fact that multitudes of titles, derived under the former sovereignties of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Mexico, depending for validity on their colonial laws (in some very few instances they were direct from the Crown, although usually made through the instrumentality of the governors-general, intendants, subdelegates, and military commandants), have been secured to the lawful owners.

Turning to the national map it will be seen that these private claims or grants, marking the progress of early explorations and settlements on this continent, begin on the northern shores of the Michigan lower peninsula, come down to the old French settlement at and near Detroit, pass over to Green Bay and Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin, enter into Indiana at the old Vincennes post, down the eastern side of the Mississippi, and in Illinois reach Peoria, Prairie du Rocher, and the Kaskaskias, there resting on ancient British and French grants, and all within the limits of the United States according to the treaty of limits in 1783. Thence such ancient claims are found in descending the Mississippi under other forms of grant and granting officers, to the Gulf of Mexico, extending into the southern portions of Mississippi and Alabama, and scattering all over both East and West Florida, crossing the Mississippi and following the shores of the Gulf, they are found thickly scattered over Louisiana, existing in Arkansas, and in great numbers in Missouri.

1 In those localities south of the thirty-first degree, east of the Mississippi, to the Perdido, and those west of the Mississippi to the present State of Missouri, inclusive,

the claims are founded on Spanish and French titles, under treaty of 1803 and ancient settlements; those east of the Perdido, in the Floridas, upon Spanish titles under the treaty of 1819, and under old settlements.

In New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California, as we advance westward, there exist ancient Spanish titles, municipal and rural, claimed under the treaty of 1848 with Mexico, and what is known as the Gadsden purchase of December 30, 1853. These claims are for irregular tracts, illy defined, bounded by streams or marked by headlands, or natural objects in many cases since removed. They were made for agricultural, mining, stock-raising, or colonization, in all sizes from a village lot to a million-acre tract. The records kept by the granting authorities of Spain and Mexico have been a serious hindrance in some cases toward a satisfactory solution, being frequently of doubtful meaning.

These titles, in view of the obligations assumed by the United States to respect private property where the same had legal inception under the former governments, have passed under the examination of Congress, and, in other cases, the power of confirmation has been delegated to the district courts, with a right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, by whose labors the edifice of provincial land law has risen to its present complete proportions, but the greater number have been confirmed by the judicial tribunals of the United States and others by direct legisla tive acts operating upon official reports submitted.

The United States, by the enlargement of the national domain, assumed obligations under the public law, and by treaties, to recognize all titles which had lawful inception prior to the transfer of sovereignty and soil.

A primary and important duty required the separation of private from the public property.

There is no one branch of jurisprudence where greater research and extent of legal erudition have been displayed than in the discussion and determination by the judicial tribunals of the intricate questions which in this connection have arisen.

The rule of recognition of private land claims generally has been a broad one, and they have been confirmed under the largest possible allowance of equity.

Ever since the province of Louisiana was acquired from France by the treaty of 30th April, 1803, the United States have earnestly and patiently sought by every proper expedient to induce persons claiming property in lands by virtue of grant, concession, order of survey, permission to settle, or any other authority whatsoever derived from former sovereigns, to make known their claims to the new Government, in order that their lands might be distinguished from the mass of the vacant domain which had vested in that new Government by the treaty, and which policy and necessity demanded should be surveyed, brought into market, and speedily sold to reimburse the price paid by the United States for the province. In practically carrying out this obvious and just design, many acts were passed, beginning with that of March 2, 1805. They are very numerous, and for the most part have long since been repealed, have expired by limitation, or have become obsolete; some of them applied only to particular districts, others to the whole State; some were of short duration others were more extended, while others still revived, re-enacted, explained, or modified those preceding; some provided boards of commissioners, with deputy commissioners, before whom the claims were to be presented, while others, and the larger number, made the registers and receivers for the established land districts ex-officio commissioners for receiving and reporting on the claims; some conferred ample, others limited, powers upon the commissioners, and all denounced severe penalties from time to time against those who failed to present their claims.

DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES RELATING TO LOUISIANA AND FLORIDA PURCHASES.

The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in cases relating to the Louisiana purchase of 1803, and the Florida purchase of 1819, as to grants or private