middle of the nineteenth century that these wet lands received any attention from either state or federal government. Until 1850 all the great swamp tracts, except those included in the thirteen original states (Dismal, Okefinokee, eastern seaboard plain, Jersey marshes, and tidal lands of New England), remained in the national estate.

Not only is this work of reclamation of great importance to the health and prosperity of the United States as a whole, and immense sums of money beyond the ability of states or individuals to furnish, needed to carry on operations until returns commence to come in from the sale of reclaimed lands, but the drainage problem offers better opportunities from a practical economic standpoint than does that of irrigation. The average cost of irrigation is thirty dollars an acre; that of drainage is about five or six dollars. Swamp areas are more generally in the midst of populous territory with already developed transportation facilities, the engineering problems as a rule are more simple, and the land is usually richer in itself than arid land. Then, too, the federal government is already well prepared to undertake such activities, for the United States Geological Survey, as the result of hydrographic and topographical surveys covering nearly a million square miles for several years has been gradually accumulating a great mass of maps, charts, statistics, and general information relating to rainfall, drainage, and water-sheds.

There is a considerable number of large swamps that lie in river basins extending through more than one state, and they can not be drained effectively or economically, or with justice to the inhabitants of each state, without the intervention of some interstate authority. The Dismal Swamp occupies parts of Virginia and North Carolina. The Savannah River on the northern border of Georgia, and the Appalachicola on its southwestern border have great swamp and overflowed areas in South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. Between North and South Carolina there are extensive interstate marshes. The Okefinokee swamp of Georgia must have its drainage outlets across the state of Florida. The Tombigbee Valley in Mississippi lies above the same valley in Alabama. The Pearl River bottom occupies parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. The St. Francis Basin extends into both Missouri and Arkansas, while the swamp areas of the Red River of the North occupy Minnesota and North Dakota, and those of the

Kankakee, both Indiana and Illinois. In short, the greater part of our swamp reclamation problems is interstate. 85

Furnishing Certified Copies of Land Records. It has already been indicated that the furnishing of patent records constitutes one of the most important functions of the General Land Office. It was one of the original duties of the office, and it must be one of the very last activities. References will have to be made to the original titles to lands long after every other function of the office has ceased, and copies of these original records and similar data when authenticated by the seal of the Land Office and when certified by the proper official, constitute valid evidence in the courts equally with the original documents.

Consequently the Commissioner must almost constantly cause to be prepared and certified "under the seal of the office, such copies of records, books, and papers on file in his office, as may be applied for, to be used in evidence in courts of justice." (R. S. 2469).

Approximately thirty thousand of these certified records are furnished every year. In 1920 the office earned $8,000 in this way. Sometimes calls come for copies of patents about fifty years after date of the original grant. Obviously these records affect the title to a vast proportion of the homes beyond the Mississippi River.

In this matter the General Land Office acts as a veritable register of deeds, and exemplifies the method that was practiced by the colonies. For public records

of land conveyances were early introduced in New England and

85 Palmer, Swamp land drainage with special reference to Minnesota, University of Minnesota, Studies in the Social Sciences, No. 5, Pp. 17, 104-105 (1915). This work contains a compendium of drainage statutes of the various states and gives a succinct account of swamp land reclamation in foreign countries as well as in the United States.

A list of areas of swamp and overflowed lands is given in the report of the National Conservation Commission, vol. III, pp. 361-374 (1909).

other colonies before the first of the English local acts; and they were well established in most of the colonies before the Revolution. These public records are now the recognized basis for determining title to land. . . . In all the states a public record is kept of documents affecting titles to real estate; and such documents must be officially recorded to be valid against an innocent third party. . . . As the recorded documents only establish a presumptive title and are not conclusive evidence, there is generally some risk of defects in titles being disclosed.36

With land values rapidly increasing has come a greater insistence on the part of abstractors and purchasers that the first link in the chain of title be evidenced by production of the original patent, or a certified copy from its record in all cases where such instruments are not already of record in the county. This has caused a steady annual increase of orders for copies of patent records, and has emphasized the fact that hundreds of thousands of these muniments of title have never been recorded in the local records of the county. This has involved a steadily growing volume of correspondence and large increases in status and file work, as in nearly every instance an order for a copy involves a search of the tract book to identify the entry, drawing, marking, and photographing the patent record, trimming, certifying, and transmitting the copy, and refiling the patent record and entry papers. During the decade from 1901 to 1910, inclusive, the annual output increased from 7,668 copies in 1901 to 23,917 in 1910, an average annual production of 15,419 copies.

37

Pertaining to this there is also a voluminous amount of correspondence and photographic work. In 1920, the number of such letters received was more than forty thousand, an increase over the previous year of 43 per cent. More than one hundred thousand pages of photographic work were put out, including copies of patent records, plates, papers, letter books, tract books, and abstracts.

36 Fairlie, in McLaughlin and Hart's Cyclopedia of American government, vol. II, p. 307.

37 Annual Report, 1920, pp. 87-88.

Tract-book Notations. The tract books contain the records of applications, selections, original entries, final certificates, withdrawals, restorations, cancellations, rejections, appeals, petitions, posted plats of surveys, Indian allotments, and kindred items.

With the aid of this book, the patent certificates can be posted in the Land Office as soon as they are received. This enables the Adjudicating Division to pass on the satisfactory cases for patent with little delay. In 1920 the total number of tract book notations was 396,324, or about twenty thousand more than during the previous year.

Lands that are affected by applications for power permits under the Federal Water-power Act of June 10, 1920 (41 Stat. L., 1063) are also noted on the tract books and on protracted sheets. These lands are then not subject to disposition.

or repayments are

Repayments. Reimbursements granted to entrymen or to their heirs, assigns, or legal representatives in cases where entries cannot be confirmed are cancelled for conflict, where the lands have been erroneously sold, and where amounts in excess of the legal requirements have been paid. In 1920, 1400 of these claims were allowed amounting to $140,000; and 400 claims were denied.

Activities in Public Land Reservations. Lands are withdrawn from settlement and entry and are reserved to the government for various purposes including Indian and military reservations, reclamation projects, oil land claims, saline lands and salt springs, national parks, forests and monuments, and land to be leased. While many of these reservations are administered by agencies other than the General Land Office, the lands withdrawn must all be noted on the records. In 1919, there were nine million acres of public land reserved and four million acres restored.

In 1920, there were 5,394,799 acres of public lands withdrawn, and 14,199,647 acres that had been withdrawn

were restored. These withdrawals and restorations included stock driveways, national forests, land for coal, petroleum, potash, and oil shale, power sites, public water reserves, and reclamation areas.

Indian Reservations and Allotments. Sometimes Indian reservations are extended over lands that have already been entered and settled. When this is done, other public lands may be selected in lieu of those lands of which the entryman was deprived.38 Since 1904 more than one million acres have been selected and patented.39

Much of the Indian reservation land is patented in trust to the Indians for a period of twenty-five years, the United States still retaining title, 40 but the President in his discretion may extend this period. After twenty-five years, if the Indian be deemed capable the government conveys the land to him by a patent in fee which makes him the possessor of the land free of all incumbrance. This system was established by the act of February 8, 1887 (24 Stat. L., 388), by which

Congress sought to encourage individual Indians to break away from the tribal mode of life and to become self-sustaining occupants of land for farming and grazing purposes. Under these regulations an Indian, desirous of obtaining nonreservation land under said allotment act, must first obtain a certificate from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that he or she is entitled to an allotment. This certificate must be filed at the proper United States district land office together with an application for the land on which the applicant has settled, which operates to segregate the land.

The Indians must actually use the land for two years and

98 Act of April 21, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 211).

39 Annual Report, 1920, p. 76.

40 Act of August 3, 1914 (38 Stat. L., 681).

A schedule of Indian land cessions, "indicating the number and location of each cession by or reservation for the Indian tribes from the organization of the federal government to and including 1894," is included with maps in the U. S. Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report, 1897, pp. 648-949.