the order therefor is once made, but in making segregation the department is practically committed to the feasibility of the proposition submitted by the state, and people thereafter dealing with the state are in a great degree entitled to regard the proposition of the state as having received the indorsement of the department.

All this must be carefully gone into at the time when the segregation of the lands is proposed by the state for its benefit, but later, when the state applies for a patent to the lands thus segregated, it is further necessary for the Land Office again to carefully inquire into the facts of the case, and adjudge whether in fact the lands have been reclaimed under the terms of the statute, before issuing a patent therefor.

The Carey Act in itself is brief in terms and not difficult of construction, but the questions that have to be determined in carrying it into effect involve some of the most difficult legal problems submitted to the department, and especially is this true in determining water rights claimed by appropriation under the state laws.55

Since the passage of the Carey Act, applications have been made for the segregation of eight million acres of desert land. Patents to the several states have been issued to the extent of nine hundred thousand acres.

Then granting of public lands to railroads has imposed great judicial duty upon the Commissioner, as these grants have caused more litigation than any other land legislation. The Commissioner must so construe the law that his decision will not be modified by the courts, for such modification might mean such losses of homes and fortunes as could never be indemnified.

In 1920 there were 1,710,915.82 acres of railroad and wagon-road selections received. Five thousand acres were certified and patented.

Closely related to the adjudication of land grants to railroads is the adjudication of cases arising under the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. L., 482), which granted rights of way to railroads.

55 Annual Report, 1911, p. 12.

Applications under this act not infrequently are presented by rival corporations. The opening of a new country to railroad enterprise brings into action competitive interests of the largest magnitude, and the fight over priorities to be secured by those first in the field is bitter and expensive to the parties. A mistake in the construction of the law so confided to the Commissioner, in acting upon these rights-of-way applications, may bring financial disaster to a worthy enterprise.

56

In 1920 there were docketed 213 rights of way cases, of which 137 were finally closed. By judicial decree fourteen grants were canceled and thirty suits were instituted.

Rights of way through the public lands and reservations. were granted to canal and ditch companies formed for irrigation purposes by the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. L., IIOI). This has given the Land Office the duty of adjudicating conflicting applications from companies and individuals in their struggles for precedence in gaining these rights of way which constitute easements. Further, judicial duties were imposed upon the Commissioner by the act of February 15, 1901 (31 Stat. L., 790), which granted rights of way through public lands for electrical plants, power lines, telephone and telegraph lines, canals, tunnels, flumes, pipes, conduits, dams, and reservoirs.

Though the right conferred by this act is not an easement, but subject to revocation, yet a proper administration thereof requires the utmost care in the recognition of rights claimed thereunder. This is apparent when it is remembered that the purpose of the act contemplates granting privileges upon which large investments of capital may be made and a revocation of the privilege, if due to any fault or oversight on the part of the Land Department, might result very disastrously.57

The grants made by the national government to the states for the maintenance of common schools and internal improve

56 Ibid., p. 14.

57 Ibid.

ments imposes judicial duty upon the Commissioner of the General Land Office. This is due largely to the fact that the

grants to the several states are not in the same terms, hence the rule that might apply in one state, or as announced by the court as applicable to one state, may not be decisive in the adjustment of a grant to another state. The duty then rests upon the Commissioner to carefully ascertain the facts as to the lands in place, and those claimed as indemnity, and in adjusting the grant to so construe the statutes that the state shall receive the full amount of its grant without injustice to adverse interests. 58

In the matter of private land claims many inquiries must be answered by the General Land Office, and the

examination of this class of claims involves considerable concentration, labor, and patience owing to the age of the claims, which are based on rights acquired prior to the acquisition of the lands by the United States, and the great mass of laws under which they are adjudicated.5o

Numerous defects in title are constantly being discovered by local lawyers in attempted transfers of real estate. To determine the true title, resort to the Land Office records must be had. Commissioner Clay Tallman claimed that

there is no one branch of jurisprudence where greater research and extent of legal learning have been displayed than in the discussion and determination by the judicial tribunals of the intricate questions which have arisen in connection with private land claims. The grants and concessions made by former governments 60 have all been equitably adjusted by the United States by the aid of commissions, commissioners, boards, and courts acting under authority conferred by a series of leg58 Ibid., p. II.

59 Ibid., 1920, p. 63.

60 As an example of this problem see Cunningham, Origin of the friar lands question in the Philippines, American Political Science Review, X, pp. 465-480.

islative acts running through a period of more than a century. During the course of such determination many claims have been rejected because of forged or antedated title papers or because the evidence presented did not entitle the claimants to a grant under the laws of the former government, or that the concession had been forfeited or annulled prior to the cession. In cases where actual possession and cultivation of the land claimed could be shown donations have been made and preëmption rights granted for such limited areas as Congress has deemed just and proper."

61

Subordinate Legislative Activities. Coincident with the various executive and judicial activities of the General Land Office, there is necessarily much exercise of the executive ordinance power in the office. The Commissioner must promulgate rules and regulations for the carrying into effect the laws enacted by Congress.

Such regulations include the selection of lands by states and territories under grants for education, rules governing the recognition of agents and attorneys before district land offices, regulations concerning rights of way for various purposes over public lands, directions pertaining to entry on coal lands and the protection of surface rights of entrymen, and a great number of other subjects.

Restoration of Lost or Obliterated Corners. The corners of the surveys of the public lands are marked by means of monuments. These monuments may consist of native stone, tree, wooden post, deposit corner, or a modern iron post. More than one hundred varieties of corners have been prescribed for marking the lines of surveys on the public lands.62 Any one of these markers is subject to deterioration. 61 Annual Report, 1920, p. 65.

62 Descriptions and illustrations of some of these corners with their corresponding ground plans and some methods of establishing them is given by Charles L. Du Bois, Chief of Division of Public Land Surveys, G. L. O., in his "Rectangular system of United States public land surveying," in the Technology Quarterly, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, vol. XII, No. 4, pp. 265-268 (1899).

Despite heavy penalties they may be removed, thus obliterating the corner of the survey. Many monuments have been violated, and when the county officers or local surveyors cannot locate the corners due to the loss of the monuments, they write to the General Land Office asking for proper methods of restoration. To meet this demand the Land Office has prepared rules for the restoration of lost and obliterated corners. These are based upon the acts of Congress as construed by the General Land Office and the United States

courts.

Publication of Public Land Information. The legislative acts require a corresponding amount of publication. Besides regulations the Land Office issues circulars of information pertaining to vacant public lands, homesteads, and kindred subjects for the benefit of the public. One of the most valuable publications is that of the annual United States Map.

Coöperation with other National State Agencies. It has already been indicated in various instances that there must necessarily be considerable coöperation between the General Land Office and other administrative agencies.

The Bureau of Education supplies information concerning the use of lands by native occupants in Alaska. The Alaskan Engineering Commission coöperates in the matter of the survey and sale of Alaskan areas. The Office of Indian Affairs sometimes coöperates with the General Land Office in the sale of lands which the Indian tribes cede back to the United States. In 1904 a million acres of such lands were sold in Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

In its classification of lands the Land Office benefits from the work of the Geological Survey, and in certain other activities the Geological Survey benefits from the Land Office surveys. The Bureau of Mines, under the act of February 25, 1920 (41 Stat. L., 437, supervises operations with reference to gas, oil, coal, etc., on leased government lands and