public land laws comply with the law, to investigate timber trespasses, depredations, and enclosures on the public domain, to investigate alleged fraudulent patents and applications for relief under the Oil and Gas-Leasing Act, to prosecute mislocating settlers, and to assist United States attorneys in prosecutions under the public land laws.

The service is directly administered by the Chief of Field Service. It is organized into nine field divisions composed of from four to eighteen men. Each division is under the command of a Special Agent who is designated as the chief of the division. Other Special Agents, one or more Mineral Examiners, and clerical assistants usually complete the division. These divisions are stragetically assigned to various districts so as to render adequate protection to all parts of the public domain.

The headquarters of these field divisions with their corresponding districts are as follows: Juneau, Alaska; Cheyenne, Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota; Denver, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma; Helena, Montana and North Dakota; Portland, Oregon, Washington, and Northern Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah and Southern Idaho; San Francisco, California and Nevada; Santa Fe, New Mexico and Arizona; Southern Field Division, at Jackson, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. A tenth district, embracing Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, is under the direct supervision of the Chief of Field Service in Washing

ton.

The Commissioner of the General Land Office may designate a Special Agent to act as Inspector of Special Agents, his duty being to visit the headquarters of the Special Agents, to inspect their records and methods of work, to instruct them in their duties, and to report his findings to the Commissioner.

Offices of the United States Surveyors-General. While the actual work of surveying the public lands is performed by the Surveying Service, the thirteen offices of the United States

Surveyors-General execute the major office work. They receive applications for surveys and resurveys, and issue. special instructions for their completion. They examine, transcribe, plat, and approve the returns of surveys, including mineral surveys. They are the custodians of the original records of surveys and resurveys, and they furnish certified copies of these records. They are special disbursing agents for the United States Surveyors; they receive and disburse moneys that are deposited for surveys and resurveys. As judicial functionaries they hold hearings when so directed. They furnish to the public, information pertaining to general surveying. As administrative agents, they commission Deputy Mineral Surveyors.

Each Surveyor-General engages a sufficient number of qualified Deputy-Surveyors and has the authority to administer the necessary oaths to the deputies, to frame regulations for their duties, and to remove them for negligence or misconduct in office.

Special duties devolve upon the Surveyors-General in cooperating with the Forest Service in the survey of homestead entries in the national forests.

The Surveyors-General serve directly under the Chief Clerk in Washington. The personnel of each Surveyor-General's office generally consists of from seven to twelve persons, but the office at Huron, S. D., consists of only two: the SurveyorGeneral and a Draftsman. The staff of each office usually includes a Chief Draftsman, Chief Clerk, and the necessary assistants.

The headquarters of the thirteen offices of the U. S. Surveyors-General and the adjacent territory over which they function are as follows: Juneau, Alaska; Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, California; Denver, Colorado; Boise, Idaho; Helena, Montana; Reno, Nevada; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Huron, South Dakota; Salt Lake City, Utah; Olympia, Washington; and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Two or more of these offices may be consolidated by the

Secretary of the Interior at his own discretion (27 Stat. L., 709).

District Land Offices. The ninety-four district or local land offices are distributed as widely as the other field services of the General Land Office. Each office is managed by a Register and a Receiver whose joint function it is to provide the initial contact with the Washington office. They give information to settlers in regard to unoccupied lands, look up records, furnish plats or diagrams of vacant and taken lands in townships, receive and examine applications to enter the public domain, administer oaths, act upon final proofs, and issue the certificates upon which patents are based. They record tracts entered, receive payments there for, and forward the papers to Washington. Like the work of many of the divisions in the Washington Office, the work of the local land offices is both judicial and administrative. They act on proofs of claimants upon the laws and regulations, conduct hearings, and render decisions in contested cases. Witnesses may be compelled to attend these hearings. The decisions of the local land officers are subject to review by the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

When the total acreage of public land in any local district is reduced to less than 100,000 acres the Secretary of the Interior is required by law to discontinue the local office and consolidate its business with such other office as is most convenient, or the President may transfer the duties of the local office to the Surveyor-General of the district in which the land office is located. Usually the last land office within a state is located at the capital, and that is closed when the remainder of the public land within that state has been disposed of, and the subsequent business relative to the one time public lands within that state is executed by the General Land Office at Washington.

The Registers and Receivers are usually referred to as the "district land officers" or as the "local land officers." As a service they are less centralized than any other branch of the

General Land Office. While they are subordinate to the General Land Office in Washington, and while the Inspectors may pay them frequent visits, the local land officers are not under the immediate personal direction of a supervising chief. The Registers and Receivers are appointed by the President for a term of four years. Usually they are appointed from the district to which they are assigned, and they must reside at the place of their land office. These district officers constitute the basis of the entire land administration.

In addition to their joint duties the Registers and the Receivers have certain individual duties. The Register is the officer who personally receives and passes upon applications for certificates of entry to be used as evidence of filing. No entry can be made in the absence of the Register. The Receiver is especially charged with the collection and custody of moneys. He must make monthly returns of the moneys in his office to the Secretary of the Treasury and pay over such money pursuant to the Secretary's instruction.

He must also make to the Commissioner of the General Land Office like monthly returns, and send him quarterly accountscurrent of the debits and credits of his office.

In twelve of the district land offices the Register and the Receiver constitute the sole personnel,5 but usually there is more commonly a clerical staff of from two to seven assistants from the classified civil service. These clerks may be shifted from one office to another according to the needs of the service.

The land districts are established by law, but the President is authorized to change and reëstablish the boundaries and to establish additional districts wherever in his opinion it is for the best interests of the public service. He may likewise relocate the several land districts from time to time as he may

5 These twelve offices are: Juneau, Alaska, which has a register only; Springfield, Missouri, and Broken Bow, Nebraska, each of which have a register and a clerk; Nome, Alaska; Eureka, California; Del Norte, Colorado; Leadville, Colorado; Marquette, Michigan; Kalispell, Montana; Minot, North Dakota; Vernal, Utah; Wausau, Wisconsin.

deem expedient. By the act of October 28, 1921 (42 Stat. L., 208) the President was authorized

to consolidate the offices of register and receiver in any district land office, and to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a register for such land office and to abolish the office of receiver of such land office upon sixty days' notice of such abolition mailed to such register and receiver whenever the total compensation for both register and receiver of such land office shall fall below the sum of $4,000 per annum, and in his opinion the interests of the service warrant such abolition.

Within sixty days after the mailing of such notice the office of receiver of such land office shall cease to exist, and all the powers, duties, obligations, and penalties imposed by law upon both register and receiver of such office shall be exercised by and imposed upon the register so appointed, who shall be paid a salary of $500 per annum, together with the fees and commissions otherwise allowable to both register and receiver. Provided, That the salary, fees, and commissions of such register shall not exceed $3,000 per annum.

In 1921 there were ninety-four district land offices, distributed among twenty-five states and Alaska, as follows: Alaska 3, Alabama 1, Arizona 1, Arkansas 3, California 8, Colorado 10, Florida 1, Idaho 5, Kansas 1, Lousiana 1, Michigan 1, Minnesota 3, Mississippi 1, Missouri 1, Montana 10, Nebraska 3, Nevada 2, New Mexico 6, North Dakota 4, Oklahoma 1, Oregon 7, South Dakota 6, Utah 2, Washington 6, Wisconsin 1, Wyoming 6.0

6 A bill to authorize the President to consolidate the offices of register and receiver in the district land offices was introduced in the Sixty-seventh Congress, First session, and a hearing on it (H. R. 2313) was held before the Committee on the Public Lands on April 26, 1921. It was enacted into law on October 28, 1921. This plan of organization had been previously urged from time to time. In his annual report for 1910 (page 6) Commissioner Fred Dennett insisted that "the organization of the local land offices should be changed and a great deal of money saved, and better administration secured by the abolition of the positions of register and receiver and the creation of one position in lieu of the two. The positions of