of commissioners created for California in 1853, and many are still unsettled that came before the earlier boards and commissioners in Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri. A more speedy and effective plan for the disposal of claims of New Mexico and Arizona is demanded by the exigencies of the case.

The very loose terms of the act of July 22, 1852, enable great bodies of land to be held in indefinite reservation upon the mere assertion of some claim that perhaps has no foundation, or if valid at all is valid only for a fraction of the claimed area. It is the public demand that whatever valid claims may exist to any such lands should be finally determined and the overplus of the reserved lands opened to settlement and entry.

Much unnecessary mystery has been thrown around claims asserted under alleged grants from Mexican and Spanish authorities, apparently for the sole end of clouding real facts and creating legal fictions.

There is nothing mysterious and nothing difficult in these cases so far as bona fide claims and their real extent are concerned. If a grant was made the archives of Spain or Mexico are presumed to contain a record of it. The authority for making the grant is a matter of positive law. The validity of a claim being established, its location and its extent within the limitations of the laws, when not definitely expressed in the grant itself, are ascertainable by an investigation upon the ground, which ought always to be made, but which cannot be made by a commission sitting as a board.

In my annual report I expressed the opinion that Congress was the safest tribunal to which these claims could be referred for confirmation after thorough investigation and report, and I recommend that the cases already transmitted to Congress without such investigation be remanded, for the purpose of a thorough examination preliminary to final action.

The expediency and necessity of such examination and investigation is shown by the results of the cases already investigated by Surveyor-General Julian.

I inclose a copy of letter of the surveyor-general, dated March 1, 1886, referring to three cases which had previously been reported favorably to Congress, but which his re-examination showed palpably fraudulent, and the definitive rejection of which, as now recommended, would open to settlement over 300,000 acres in these three cases alone.

The second plan recommended by the surveyor-general, viz, that the act of 1854 be so amended as to give this department jurisdiction to finally determine such claims, might have the merit of expedition, and perhaps it is equally as competent for Congress to vest this authority in the department as to place it in the hands of a less responsible special tribunal.

I see no good reason, however, for departing from the plan of congressional confirmation, if Congress can first be placed in possession of the facts in each case as the same may be ascertained and developed by a rigid investigation.

The course heretofore pursued of confirming such claims upon the bare reports that have hitherto been submitted by surveyors-general, based solely upon interested statements, is evidently injudicious and improvident. The public rights and interests are entitled to due protection, and Congress is entitled to all the information essential to intelligent action. Such information is not embraced in the reports heretofore submitted and now before Congress, except in the cases which have been re-examined and supplemental reports made, as in the instances referred to by Surveyor-General Julian. I respectfully recommend action by Congress upon such supplementary reports, and renew my recommendation that all cases heretofore submitted to Congress be remanded to this department for re-examination, investigation, and further report, preliminary to any other steps looking to the confirmation of the claims.

Very respectfully,

Hon. L. Q. C. LAMAR,

WM. A. J. SPARKS,

Commissioner.

Secretary of the Interior.

The surveyor-general, in his annual report, urges anew the objections to the commission project, and says:

The project of a land commission for New Mexico, specifically designed for the settlement of these questions, has been agitated for more than a dozen years, during which it has been earnestly commended by successive Commissioners of the General Land Office and surveyorsgeneral. If the question were a new one and wholly unembarrassed by rival schemes, as was the act of Congress of 1851, providing a commission for California, there would be little opposition to the measure; but this is not the case. It is now complicated with a totally different method of settling these titles, which the Government has pursued since 1854, and is antagonized by other propositions which would not have stood in the way in the beginning. The adoption of such a measure is not now believed to be attainable. Near the close of the late session of Congress the House of Representatives, with but little opposition, passed a bill which was almost literally copied from the act of 1851, but it was summarily and decisively repudiated by the Senate, as kindred propositions had repeatedly been before. I see nothing to warrant the belief that the two Houses can be harmonized in the passage of any such measure. Besides, it would not now answer the purpose intended. What is wanted above all things is the speedy settlement of the titles so long left in painful uncertainty. The bill recently voted upon in the House provides for an appeal from the commission to the district courts of the territory, and from their decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, which is already four or five years behind with its work. It would require at least from fifteen to twenty years to settle these titles by such a process. Under the California act, upon which this is based, the settlement of grant titles in that state, if I am not mistaken, remains uncompleted after the lapse of thirty-five years, although it was repeatedly amended and modified in furtherance of its purpose. The grant claimants know this, and understand the situation perfectly. They are all zealously in favor of the measure, so far as I am able to learn, because they know that it would leave them in the undisturbed possession of their claims for indefinite years. Even if certain of defeat in the end, they would appeal from the commission to the territorial courts, and thence to the Supreme Court of the United States, simply as a means of prolonging their dominion over their possessions, which, as I have shown, are often held under an invalid title and a survey extravagantly in excess of the grant, if valid. The project would prove a vexatious mockery of the very idea of a speedy settlement of titles, and it is scarcely necessary, therefore, to discuss its details and point out its particular defects.

The proposition to refer these claims to the courts for settlement is opposed by the surveyor-general upon similar grounds, and for the further reason that, as he is very positively assured by the territorial judges, their dockets are already so crowded with legitimate and indispensable business that they could not undertake the adjudication of these claims without totally abdicating their regular and unavoidable work, and, besides, that if they should attempt this double service the disposition of these titles would be attended by such interminable delay in the territorial courts, and afterward on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, as to prolong the litigation beyond endurance or work a complete denial of justice.

He recommends action by Congress under existing laws after a reexamination of the claims, or that authority be given the land department to finally dispose of them. He strenuously urges that in any event a statute of limitations should be passed to govern the future presentation of claims, and that "Congress should at least provide for an authentic survey of the grants, and thus restore to settlement the millions of acres now held in reservation through preliminary surveys which have no validity, but which were cunningly devised by grant claimants in furtherance of their work of plunder. Even a simple statute of limitation, fixing a time within which new cases shall be filed or thereafter be barred, would do something to relieve the universal importance and galling discontent of the people of New Mexico and keep alive the hope that they are not to be utterly abandoned by the parent Government."

I adhere to the opinion expressed in my last report that Congress is not only the most responsible but the safest tribunal to which the disposal of private land claims can be intrusted, and that final confirmation should be left with that body, but that no further claims should be confirmed on reports of surveyors-general without examination and thorough investigation by this office and in the field. I respectfully recommend prompt action upon re-examined claims as fast as the needed investigations can be made and reports thereon are submitted, and renew the recommendation, which has been urged by this office for several years, that an act be passed providing that all claims not presented within a reasonable and fixed period be forever barred.

RAILROAD LAND GRANTS.

The grant of lands to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company by the act of 1866 was for a road from points mentioned to the Colorado river, and "thence by the most practicable and eligible route to the Pacific." The company located its line of projected road to the Pacific ocean at San Buenaventura, and thence to San Francisco, the additional line between these points being some 380 miles in length, along which lands were withdrawn in 1874 under an opinion of a former Assistant Attorney-General that the company was authorized by the act to extend its line in this manner.

Great complaint was made of this ruling. The legislature of California in 1876 passed a joint resolution protesting against such construction of the law and against the withdrawal of lands from settlement; the United States circuit court, in a case before it, held that there was no grant between San Buenaventura and San Francisco, and settlers were clamoring for the lands.

On October 30, 1885, a decision was made by this office in the case of Norris W. Palmer v. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, involving a tract in the disputed limits, holding the same excepted from

the grant, if any existed, by prior settlement right, and the opinion was expressed that there was no grant.

Attorneys for the railroad company attempted to suppress the effect of this opinion by applying to the Department for a peremptory order in the premises and making exaggerated statements of alleged facts in support of their application. Upon these statements the Department very properly called for a report from this office, whereupon the announce ment was immediately telegraphed over the country that the Secretary had reversed the Commissioner's decision; and this assertion, broadened into a generalization, was reiterated for months in special dispatches. On January 13, 1886, the report called for was submitted, showing that the statement of alleged facts was contradicted in every point by the record. I also availed myself of the opportunity offered by the company's action in thus bringing the matter before the Department to review the graut, and to recommend that the withdrawal of lands between San Buenaventura and San Francisco be revoked, as having been made without authority of law, and that the lands which had been unjustly withheld from settlement and entry for twelve years be restored to the public domain.

On February 1, 1886, you laid a rule upon the company to show cause why the withdrawal should not be revoked and the lands restored.

On March 23, 1886, you rendered final decision, affirming the views of this office in holding that no grant was made by the act of Congress for these lands, and directed that they be restored to entry as other public lands of the United States. This order was duly carried into effect, and over one million five hundred thousand acres were thus recovered from the illegal claim of the railroad company.

As this case was made the foundation of carefully fostered allega tions that the important decisions of this office were constantly being overruled by the Department, I have deemed it expedient to here place upon record the initial falsity of the assertion. The decision, report, and action referred to in this case will be found among the miscellaneous papers in the proper division report herewith.

The declaration by Congress of the forfeiture of lands granted to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company along the unconstructed portion of the road has recovered a great body of lands to the public estate, amounting to not less than 10,000,000 acres in California and New Mexico, and the declaration of forfeiture in respect to a number of unconstructed and unlocated southern roads has relieved a considerable territory from embarrassment, consequent upon the existence of the unperfected grants.

The delay in further congressional action touching the enforcement of railroad forfeitures has the effect to practically suspend much of the work of this office in the matter of railroad adjustments. It is of the first importance that the legislative will should be promptly and definitely asserted in respect to the grants of delinquent corporations.

1

The decisions of this office during the past year affecting public and private rights to lands claimed by railroad companies further include the following:

In the case of McRae v. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company, decided January 12, 1886, it was held that the joint resolution of May 31, 1870, made no grant of lands to said company for that portion of its road from a point in the valley of the Columbia river near Portland, Oregon, to Puget Sound, in Washington Territory. The amount of land involved is over 1,500,000 acres.

In the case of Vaughan v. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company it was held that a withdrawal of lands upon map of general route was unauthorized by the language or purpose of the granting act, and that the company had no right to run experimental, imaginary, or fictitious lines over a whole territory, change them at its pleasure, and claim legal reservations as following these acts, although the actual location of the road was made upon distinct and totally different lines and at a much later period, when only under the statute could rights be acquired by the company or the right of settlement be denied to citizens. Both the above cases are now before the Department on appeal.

In the case of Hamilton v. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company it was held that a claim to land which excepts it from the railroad grant is any claim, recorded or proven, which is adverse to the company's claim of grant; that the railroad company cannot challenge the validity of a settlement claim, nor put an adverse claimant on the defensive, nor take advantage of any laches as between him and the Government, but must rest upon its own affirmative right to such lands only as at the proper time were unappropriated and free from claims or rights.

On January 31, 1885, Congress declared the forfeiture of the grant to the Oregon Central Railroad Company to the extent of lands adjacent te and coterminous with the unconstructed portion of the road, not including lands embraced within the limits of the constructed portion. Under this act instructions were issued by this office, with the approval of the Department, July 8, 1885, defining the lands embraced within the forfeited and unforfeited portions of the grant, and diagrams were furnished the local officers showing the lands remaining to the grant by accurate measurement of the required number of sections on each side of the constructed line. The company laid claim to a triangular tract of land embracing upward of 30,000 acres, which was distinctively adjacent to and coterminous with the unconstructed portion of the road, and not on either side of any part of the constructed line. A writ of injunction was sued out of the United States circuit court to restrain the register and receiver from disposing of these public lands, which was dismissed by the court for want of jurisdiction.

On November 9, 1885, this office rejected selections by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, embracing some 60,000 acres of land, within