Section 4 of the act of January 18, 1897 (29 Stat., 490), providing for the entry of lands in Greer county, is as follows: Sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six are reserved for school purposes as provided in laws relating to Oklahoma, and sections thirteen and thirty-three in each township are reserved for such purpose as the legislature of the future State of Oklahoma may prescribe. That whenever any of the lands reserved for school or other purposes under this act, or under the laws of Congress relating to Oklahoma, shall be found to have been occupied by actual settlers or for townsite purposes or homesteads prior to March sixteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, an equal quantity of indemnity lands may be selected as provided by law. By this section indemnity was allowed only when these reserved sections should be found to have been "occupied by actual settlers or for townsite purposes or homesteads prior to March sixteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-six." No provision is here made to indemnify against loss occasioned by reason of these sections being fractional in quantity or where one or more are wanting by reason of the township being fractional or from any other natural cause. Sections 2275 and 2276 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by act of February 28, 1891, provide for indemnity for such fractional losses only where they pertain to sections 16 and 36, reserved for school purposes. There is, therefore, no law authorizing indemnity for the losses presented in the list here asked to be approved. The school leasing board for the Territory of Oklahoma, who have prosecuted this appeal, ask the Secretary, in the event he shall find that there is no law authorizing these lieu selections, "to recommend to Congress of the United States an amendment of the law, which shall allow the selection of indemnity land for sections 13 and 33 the same as are now allowed for sections 16 and 36." In answer to this request it is sufficient to say that the reservation of sections 13 and 33 was made for "such purpose as the legislature of the future State of Oklahoma may prescribe," and inasmuch as this purpose has not yet been prescribed (the State not having been organized) a recommendation in the premises at this time is not deemed to be advisable. The decision of your office is affirmed. INDIAN RESERVATION-TIMBER CUTTING-MINING CLAIM. OPINION. The owner of a bona fide mining claim in the Colville Indian reservation has the same right, by virtue of the act of July 1, 1898, extending the mining laws to said reservation, to use and remove the timber upon his claim, as the owner of a mining claim elsewhere. Assistant Attorney-General Van Devanter to the Secretary of the Interior, June 26, 1900. (W. C. P.) I am in receipt by your reference, with request for opinion, of a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of May 24, 1900, relative to the cutting of timber on mining claims on the south half of the Colville Indian reservation, Washington. The proposition of the Indian Office is to enter into a contract with the owners of certain mining claims permitting them to place a saw-mill plant on such mining claims for the sole purpose of cutting lumber and timber to be used on such claims for the development of the property. A contract to this effect was submitted for your approval, which was refused. The Indian Office has resubmitted the matter for further consideration, and has presented an argument sustaining the right of mineral claimants on this reservation to cut timber upon their claims, and in support of the propriety of making the proposed contract says: The office is aware that there is no law, and so far as known no precedent for the making of such agreements with miners. But it is thought that miners and mining companies on that portion of the reservation who are developing properties in good faith will be willing to enter into such arrangements, because risking nothing by violations of the law they will have nothing to lose, whereas timber trespassers and speculators-those locating claims under the guise of miners, only to procure the timberwill thereby be deterred from operating on the reservation at all. By the act of July 1, 1892 (27 Stat., 62), a portion of the Colville reservation was "vacated and restored to the public domain." The remaining portion became and remained the Colville Indian reservation. The act of July 1, 1898 (30 Stat., 571, 593), contains the following provision: That the mineral lands only in the Colville Indian reservation in the State of Washington, shall be subject to entry under the laws of the United States in relation to the entry of mineral lands: Provided, That lands allotted to the Indians or used by the government for any purpose or by any school shall not be subject to entry under this provision. Thus the mineral lands within the boundaries of the present reservation were made subject to location and entry under the mining laws. The owner of a bona fide mining claim on these lands therefore has the same right to use or remove the timber found upon his claim which is possessed by the owner of a mining claim situated elsewhere, and this Department has no more authority to control the exercise of this right. in the one case than in the other. This right is not possessed by timber trespassers or speculators, who locate claims "under the guise of miners, only to procure the timber," but is restricted to owners of bona fide mining claims and authorizes them to cut timber from their own claims for use in the development or working thereof or to remove such timber when necessary to facilitate the convenient and proper development or working of the claims. This right has long been recognized by Congress and the courts and is not one which can be withheld or granted by this Department as a matter of discretion; but it is the duty of the officers of the Department to see to it that the right is not abused by those by whom it is possessed and that it is not enjoyed by those who do not possess it. The owner of a bona fide mining claim in the Colville Indian reservation may, for the purposes and to the extent herein specified, lawfully cut or remove timber from his claim, in the absence of any contract or agreement with any officer charged with the administration or supervision of Indian affairs, and one who is not the owner of a bona fide mining claim in such reservation can not, even if he obtains such a contract or agreement, lawfully cut or remove timber from any lands in said reservation. I am therefore of the opinion that the execution and approval of a contract such as is submitted will not establish, add to or take from the rights of owners of bona fide mining claims in the premises. Approved: E. A. HITCHCOCK, Secretary. ABANDONED MILITARY RESERVATION-HOMESTEAD APPLICATION. ALLEN H. Cox. Lands in abandoned military reservations coming within the purview of the act of August 23, 1894, were by said act opened to homestead entry as well as to settlement. A homestead application for surveyed lands in the Fort Hays military reservation, opened to settlement and entry by the act of August 23, 1894, presented by a qualified applicant and rejected, at a time when said lands were legally subject to entry, and pending an appeal, serves to except the lands covered thereby from the subsequent grant to the State by the act of March 28, 1900. Secretary Hitchcock to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, (W. V. D.) June 26, 1900. (G. B. G.) This is an appeal by Allen H. Cox from your office decision of September 13, 1899, rejecting his application to make homestead entry of lots 8, 10 and 11, and the S. of the SE. of Sec. 4, T. 14 S., R. 18 W., Wa-Keeney land district, Kansas. This land is within the limits of the abandoned Fort Hays military reservation established by executive order of August 28, 1868, and contains more than five thousand acres of land. October 22, 1889, this order was revoked and the land turned over to this Department. for disposal under the act of July 5, 1884 (23 Stat., 103). August 23, 1894, Congress passed an act (28 Stat., 491), for the disposal of lands in abandoned military reservations, which declared that— All lands . . . . within the limits of any abandoned military reservation . . . where the area exceeds five thousand acres . . . are hereby opened to settlement under the public land laws of the United States, and a preference right of entry for a period of six months from the date of this act shall be given all bona fide settlers who are qualified to enter under the homestead law and have made improvements nd are now residing upon any agricultural lands in said reservation, and for a period of six months from the date of settlement when that shall occur after the date of ; his act. In a circular of December 1, 1894 (19 L. D., 392), addressed to registers and receivers, prescribing rules for the administration of aid last named act, it was said by this Department that Under the terms of this act, settlement may be made on any of these reservations, whether surveyed or not, where the area exceeds five thousand acres. Where the lands in such reservations have been surveyed and the triplicate plats filed in your office, you will allow homestead entries to go to record therefor, if the entrymen are duly qualified to make entry, as in the case of other surveyed public lands. March 22, 1895, the Secretary of the Interior again withdrew from settlement and entry the land remaining undisposed of in this reservation, and this withdrawal continued in effect until revoked by departmental order of June 13, 1899 (L. & R. Misc. 396, p. 305). August 11, 1899, the application of Cox to make homestead entry of the land above described was presented at the local office and rejected, and September 13, 1899, your office affirmed the action of the local officers, and Cox has appealed to the Department, as above stated. After the presentation of said application and after the aforesaid action thereon by the local officers, the land was temporarily withdrawn from disposal by departmental order of August 24, 1899 (L. & R. 398, p. 472), and March 28, 1900, an act of Congress was passed (Public-No. 47), granting to the State of Kansas the abandoned Fort Hays military reservation, with the proviso that the act "shall not apply to any tract or tracts within the limits of said reservation to which a valid claim has attached, by settlement or otherwise, under any of the public land laws of the United States." At the date the application of Cox was presented the land in this reservation had been surveyed, and it appearing that he was qualified to make a homestead entry of any land legally subject thereto, the only question presented by his appeal is, whether the land applied for was subject to homestead entry August 11, 1899. The act of August 23, 1894, supra, in terms opened all of the lands in said reservation, then remaining undisposed of, to settlement under the public land laws of the United States. The executive withdrawal of March 22, 1895, could at best operate to take these lands out of the provisions of said act only so long as that withdrawal was in force, and it having been revoked June 13, 1899, the status of this land was on August 11, 1899, the same as if the withdrawal had not been made. That it was intended by the act of August 23, 1894, to open all lands within its descriptive provisions to entry as well as settlement seems clear from that provision of the act which gives to bona fide settlers a preference right of entry for a period of six months from the date of the act. The provision for a preference right of entry necessarily presupposes that a right of entry which was not a preference right had already been conferred by the act in opening the land to settlement under the public land laws. The said departmental circular of December 1, 1894, directed that homestead entries be allowed for these lands, and this, in addition to being a contemporaneous construction of the act, was also an adjudication upon which seekers after public lands had the right to rely. Congress at any time before the allowance of the application of Cox had the right to make other disposition of this land, but it has not done so. The act of March 28, 1900, supra, granting the lands in this reservation to the State of Kansas, specially excepted any tract or tracts within the limits of the reservation to which a valid claim had attached by settlement or otherwise, and the claim initiated by the homestead application of Cox was a valid one. The decision appealed from is reversed, and the case remanded, with directions to allow the entry. COAL LANDS-FOREST RESERVATIONS-ACT OF JUNE 4, 1897. T. P. CROWDER. The words, "the existing mining laws of the United States,” are to be construed, in legislative enactments, as embracing sections 2347 to 2352, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes, commonly known as the coal land law, unless an intention to the contrary is expressed. Coal lands are mineral lands within the meaning of the act of June 4, 1897, and as such are subject to entry, when found in forest reservations, the same as other mineral lands within such reservations. Secretary Hitchcock to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, By decision of June 24, 1899, your office sustained the decision of the local office at Los Angeles, California, rejecting the coal land declaratory statement of T. P. Crowder offered October 27, 1898, for the SE of the NE, or lot 9, of section 1, T. 2 N., R. 6 W., and lots 5, 6 and 15, of section 6, T. 2 N., R. 5 W., S. B. M., on the ground that the tract described was not subject to entry as coal land, being partly within the San Bernardino and partly within the San Gabriel forest reservations. Mr. Crowder has appealed to the Department from the decision of your office, contending that coal lands are mineral lands and as such, under the provisions of the act of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 11, 35-6), are subject to entry in the usual manner, notwithstanding such forest reservations. It appears that that part of the tract which is in said section 1 is within the San Bernardino forest reserve established February 25, 1893, by proclamation of the President (27 Stat., 1068), and that the . |