Under section 2169 of the Revised Statutes the power to naturalize is limited to " aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent." Mongolians are not white persons within the meaning of the naturalization laws; accordingly a native of Japan, being an alien Mongolian, is not entitled to become a citizen of the United States, not being included within the term "white persons." In re Saito (62 Fed. Rep., 126); and to the same effect are the cases of Re Ah Yup (5 Sawy., 155); Fong Yue Ting . U. S. (149 U. S., 716); and United States . Wong Kim Ark (169 U. S., 649).

It is shown by the records that an order was entered in the district court for the county of Ramsey, North Dakota, admitting Ski Hara to citizenship, and it is urged here that for that reason it is not within the authority of your office to question or annul the decision of the court in that respect. Similar facts existed in the case of In re Takuji Yamashita (70 Pac. Rep., 482). In that case a native of Japan applied for admission as an attorney in the courts of the State of Washington, whose laws preclude the admission of any person who is not a citizen of the United States. Yamashita had obtained from the Superior court of Pierce county, Washington, an order admitting him to citizenship. It was held that the judgment upon its face showed that Yamashita was of the Japanese race; that Japanese are not entitled to become citizens of the United States; that as the court is without authority to pronounce the judgment its determination was void and must be disregarded. It was decided that he could not be admitted to citizenship. See also cases of Re Hong Yen Chang (24 Pac. Rep., 156); and Re Gee Hop (71 Fed. Rep., 274). The decision of your office herein was proper and is hereby affirmed.

LOCATION OF WARRANTS, SCRIP, CERTIFICATES, SOLDIERS' ADDITIONAL RIGHTS, ETC.

CIRCULAR.

REGISTERS AND RECEIVERS,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., February 21, 1908.

United States Land Offices.

GENTLEMEN: In cases of applications to locate all scrips, warrants, certificates, soldiers' additional homestead rights, or to make lieu selections of public lands of the United States, the following requirements will govern on and after April 1, 1908:

1. The location or selection must be accompanied, in addition to the evidence required by existing rules and regulations, by the affidavit

of the locator, selector, or some credible person possessed of the requisite personal knowledge of the premises, showing that the land located or selected is not in any manner occupied adversely to the locator or selector.

2. You will require the locator or selector, within twenty days from the filing of his location or selection, to begin publication of notice thereof, at his own expense, in a newspaper to be designated by the register as of general circulation in the vicinity of the land, and to be the nearest thereto. Such publication must cover a period of thirty days, during which time a similar notice of the location or selection must be posted in the local land office and upon the lands included in the location or selection, and upon each and every noncontiguous tract thereof.

3. The notice must describe the land located or selected, give the date of location or selection, and state that the purpose thereof is to allow all persons claiming the land adversely, or desiring to show it to be mineral in character, an opportunity to file objection to such location or selection with the local officers for the land district in which the land is situate, and to establish their interest therein, or the mineral character thereof.

4. Proof of publication must consist of an affidavit of the publisher, or of the foreman or other proper employee of the newspaper in which the notice was published, with a copy of the published notice attached. Proof that the notice remained posted upon the land during the entire period of publication, must be made by the locator or selector or some credible persons having personal knowledge of the fact. The register will certify to the posting in his office. The first and last days of such publication and posting must in all cases be given.

PATENT-ENTRY-VACATION OF PATENT-RESTORATION OF LAND.

ALICE M. REASON.

By the issuance of patent upon an entry the entry is merged in the patent, and upon cancellation of the patent the entry can not be regarded as still in force.

Upon vacation of a patent by judicial proceeding it is the final judgment of the court that operates to revest title to the land in the United States and to restore it to the public domain; but it devolves upon the land department to determine when and how the land shall again become subject to disposal, and no action looking to disposal thereof should be taken until the finality of the judgment is established.

First Assistant Secretary Pierce to the Commissioner of the General (F. W. C.) Land Office February 21, 1908. (J. R. W.)

Alice M. Reason appealed from your decision of October 13, 1906, rejecting her application of November 4, 1905, for homestead entry for the W. NE. 1, SE. 1 of NW. 1, and NE. 1 SW. 1, Sec. 25, T. 163 N., R. 70 W., Devils Lake, North Dakota.

October 20, 1891, homestead final certificate issued for this land to Andre Fleury, and patent issued to him February 29, 1892. Suit was thereafter instituted by the United States against him and others to cancel the patent and quiet title in the United States, which resulted, September 1, 1905, in decree of the United States Circuit Court, District of North Dakota, that "the title, legal and equitable, is in the United States, and that none of the defendants has any right, title, or interest to the same." Copy of this decree was certified by the clerk, October 31, as the final decree in the cause, and was filed for record in the proper county and recorded, November 3, 1905.

November 4, 1905, Reason filed her homestead application, accompanied with her affidavit that patent was canceled September 1, 1905, by the court, as above stated. November 7, 1905, the local officers transmitted the application to your office without action, reporting that Fleury's final certificate and patent appeared intact on their record. Your office record shows that the United States Attorney, North Dakota, November 9, 1905, reported that W. N. Steele, not party to the suit, claiming to be an innocent incumbrancer without notice, would commence proceedings to vacate the decree, and recommended the land be withheld from entry for the present; April 30, 1906, he reported that Steele's petition to intervene was pending. You held that as Fleury's entry for the land had not been canceled, Reason's application should be rejected.

It was error to hold Fleury's entry as in force. That was satisfied by and merged in the patent. An entry is that recorded memorandum, made in the records of the land department, whereby the initiation of an individual right is recognized by the United States, ultimately to acquire title to public lands. Nelson . Northern Pacific Railway (188 U. S., 108, 127); Parsons . Venzke (164 U. S.. 89, 92); Bowlby ». Hays (34 L. D., 376, 380). An entry is a contract by the United States with the entryman to convey the title. Mary C. Sands (34 L. D., 653); Parsons v. Venzke, supra. When the contract is consummated by a patent the entry no longer exists, for the contract, or entry, is satisfied and discharged. There is no longer a subsisting entry.

It is the final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction that operates to revest title to the land in the United States and to restore

to the public domain land once patented. No action of the land department is necessary. When and how it becomes open to entry depends, as in respect to all other parts of the public domain, on action of the land department.

The condition of lands once patented and restored to the public domain by judicial cancelation of the patent is similar to that of patented lands restored to the public domain by voluntary relinquishment of the owner. In respect to lands of the latter class, it was held in Maybury . Hazletine (32 L. D., 41, syllabus) that:

No act should be done or permitted by the government looking to disposal of said lands until the title tendered has been examined, found satisfactory, definitely accepted, and noted on the records of the local office.

The government owes to its grantees of title the cligation of every grantor to do no act afterwards in derogation of their right or that of their grantees, tending to embarrass their title, except as any other grantor might properly do. If the United States sues to recover a title granted, it is bound to make all interested parties defendant, and can not grant adverse rights until it has recovered title. If title be recovered by judicial proceedings, it is not certainly revested until the decree is final. In the face of proceedings pending in a proper court questioning the finality or conclusiveness of such a decree, the land department should not permit another entry of the land. It follows that the land department may properly require evidence of the finality and conclusiveness of the decree purporting to cancel a patent before permitting another entry for the same land.

In the present case you were advised that the finality and conclusiveness of the decree was still a question pending in the court which rendered the decree, upon proceedings instituted by one claiming under Fleury's patent. Your rejection of Reason's application to make entry was therefore proper under the circumstances, and your decision is affirmed.

The uncertainty of condition of title did not prevent her from acquiring rights in the land by settlement, dependent on ultimate determination that it was public land, which can be recognized, and entry may be permitted pursuant to such settlement when the conclusiveness and finality of the decree is shown, and it is thus ascertained that the land is restored to the public domain.

FINAL PROOF--DESERT-LAND ENTRIES-EVIDENCE OF WATER RIGHTS.

GENTLEMEN: You will accept as competent record evidence of water rights in final proofs on desert-land entries abstracts of title compiled from public records, certified by an authorized public officer, or certified by an abstracter of title whose abstracts are admissible as evidence in the state or territory in which the record exists.

Abstracters will be required to attach to each abstract certified by them a certificate stating that they have filed in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office a certified copy of the existing statute by which they are authorized to compile abstracts of title, and evidence in the form of a certificate by the proper State, Territorial, or county officer that they have complied with the requirements of such statute.

Copies of instruments furnished in connection with desert-land entries or proof thereon made from the original instruments and not from the public record thereof must be certified by an officer authorized to administer oaths under the public land laws. (See act of March 4, 1904, 33 Stat., 59.)

Very respectfully,

Approved:

FRANK PIERCE,

First Assistant Secretary.

FRED DENNETT, Assistant Commissioner.

FEES OF SURVEYORS GENERAL-CERTIFIED COPIES OF PLATS AND

RECORDS.

CIRCULAR.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., February 21, 1908.

United States Surveyors-General.

SIRS: It appears that the rates established by law for the services of registers and receivers in furnishing exemplified copies of plats and other records of their offices, are entirely inadequate to meet the expense of like services when rendered by surveyors-general, and it is therefore ordered that hereafter you will collect for such services