School Land. See States and Territories. GENERALLY. The local officers may properly give such information as is shown by the records of their office, as to whether a given school section has been returned as mineral or nonmineral, or whether any portion thereof is or is not included in a homestead or other entry, etc., but it is not competent or proper for them to undertake to state in a manner which may be erroneously accepted as a certification or authorized statement, that such section has or has not passed to the State.......... The character of school sections in California, whether mineral or nonmineral, is not to be wholly determined by the surveyor-general's return, nor is such return considered as very high or persuasive evidence of the character of the lands when it is once drawn in question... Until laws and regulations for the leasing of school lands in the Territory of Oklahoma are prescribed by the legislature thereof, the authority and duty of deciding all questions in relation thereto are, by the act of May 4, 1894, cast upon a board composed of the governor, secretary, and superintendent of public instruction of said Territory, and the assent of the Department is not necessary to give validity to any action that may be taken by said board in relation to the leasing of such lands. The grant made by section 1 of the act of June 21, 1898, is a grant in præsenti, and upon the approval of said act the absolute title in fee to all sections 16 and 36 in the Territory of New Mexico which were then identified by the public surveys became immediately vested in said Territory, in so far as such sections embraced lands not known to be otherwise than of the character subject to the grant Land in a surveyed section numbered 16 or 56 in the Territory of New Mexico known to be saline in character at the date of the act of June 21, 1898, did not pass to the Territory under the grant of said sections for the support of common schools made by section 1 of said act, but passed to the Territory under the grant of saline lands by section 3 thereof. Land in a surveyed section numbered 16 or 36 not known to be saline in character at the date of said act passed to the Territory under the grant made by section 1 The act of March 20, 1901, of the legislative assembly of New Mexico, amending section 12 of the Territorial act of March 16, 1899, by striking out the paragraph thereof which provides that all lands to be leased under section 10 of the act of Congress of June 21, 1898, shall first be appraised, is not in terms or by necessary implication retroactive; hence leases executed under said section 10 while said section 12 as originally 212 212 269 389 389 enacted was in force can not be approved without proof of the appraisal of the lands covered thereby prior to their execution... 188 The "lands that may be leased only," referred to in section 10 of the act of June 21, 1898, embrace sections 16 and 36, granted for the use of common schools, and the "lands to the extent of two townships in quantity" granted for university purposes. There is no authority in said act to sell any of these lands or the standing timber thereon.... INDEMNITY. In school indemnity selections the lands in lieu of which indemnity is claimed should be described according to their legal subdivisions 188 34 Where school lands in lieu of which indemnity is claimed on the ground of their saline character are not shown to have been lost to the State by reason of their known mineral or saline character at the time of survey, a hearing should be had to determine their known character at such time.. 34 The preference right of selection granted to certain States, including the State of Washington, by the act of March 3, 1893, includes the right to select indemnity for losses occurring to the grant made to said State in support of common schools........ 386 The act of March 3, 1853, granting sections 16 and 36 in each township to the State of California for school purposes, and the act of February 28, 1891, granting indemnity for such sections where they are "mineral land, or are within any Indian, military, or other reservation, or are otherwise disposed of by the United States," are in pari materia, and should be construed as 335 one act Where any sections 16 or 36 were swamp and overflowed and passed to the State under the grant made by the act of September 28, 1850, they are "disposed of by the United States" within the meaning of the act of February 28, 1891, and the State is entitled to indemnity therefor The assignment by a State, as a base for the selection of land as indemnity under its school grant, of a portion only of a smallest legal subdivision, where the whole of that legal subdivision has been lost to the State, will not be accepted by the Depart ment Scrip. 335 438 By the location of Valentine scrip upon a legal subdivision of the public land of less area than that called for by the scrip, the locator does not waive or surrender his right to the excess or unused portion thereof.... 259 The right to locate surveyor-general's scrip on land subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 per acre, conferred by the special act of June 2, 1858, is in no wise affected by the general provisions of the act Page. of March 2, 1889, or the absence of a restora- The necessity for the sale of a decedent's Selection. See Railroad Grant; Reservation; School Settlement. In order to successfully assert, as against States and Territories. See School Land. Directions given that in all nonmineral The act of July 1, 1898, conferred upon 132 344 196 135 412 Under the provision in the act of June 6, Page. In the absence of express provision in sec- 341 In the absence of further legislation, the Statutes. See Acts of Congress and Revised Statutes The general law governing the survey and Section 2401 of the Revised Statutes as 261 64 77 Page. A purchaser of alleged swamp and overflowed land from the State of California after survey but before legal title had passed to the State by certification under section 2488, R. S., takes it subject to the power of the Secretary of the Interior to reject the survey, if not a lawful one, and to require that a correct survey be made... Where a fractional section in California has been described differently under the original survey of April 27, 1869, and the Carpenter survey of April 6, 1894, and selection thereof is made by a railroad company, as indemnity, under the description given in the original survey, such selection should be considered as a selection of the tract as described under the later survey, and patent should issue accordingly In the absence of express provision in section 2488, R. S., giving to the surveyorgeneral final authority over surveys in California, the power of supervision and direction lodged in the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior by sections 441, 453, and 2478, R. S., necessarily extends to surveys of public lands in that State in like manner as to other public land transactions. The Secretary is not bound to accept and recognize for any purpose a survey of the public lands in California or elsewhere where there is mistake or fraud in its execution or approval, even though the returns or notes accompanying it show a portion of the land embraced therein to be swamp and overflowed.. Swamp Land. In the absence of express provision in section 2488, R. S.. giving to the surveyorgeneral final authority over surveys in California, the power of supervision and direction lodged in the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior by sections 441, 453, and 2478, R. S., necessarily extends to surveys of public lands in that State in like manner as to other public land transactions. The Secretary is not bound to accept and recognize for any purpose a survey of the public lands in California or elsewhere where there is mistake or fraud in its execution or approval, even though the returns or notes accompanying it show a portion of the land embraced therein to be swamp and overflowed.. A purchaser of alleged swamp and overflowed land from the State of California after survey but before legal title had passed to the State by certification under section 2488, R. S., takes it subject to the power of the Secretary of the Interior to reject the survey, if not a lawful one, and to require that a correct survey be made. Timber and Stone Act. Lands in the Bitter Root Valley opened to settlement by the act of June 5, 1872, are 303 272 303 303 303 Lands as to which any bona fide claim is asserted under any law of the United States other than the act of June 3, 1878, or upon which there is situated any mining claim, or which contain mining or other improvements, except for ditch or canal purposes, save such as were made by or belong to the applicant, are not subject to sale or purchase under said act... Old excavations or unoccupied cabins, situated on abandoned mineral locations, are not such "mining or other improvements" as will except the land upon which they are located from purchase as timber land under the act of June 3, 1878, as amended by the act of August 4, 1892 The word "timber" as used in section 1 of the act of June 3, 1878, includes such trees, regardless of their dimensions, as may be used in erecting buildings or irrigation works, constructing railroads, tramways, or canals, building fences or corrals, timbering mining shafts or tunnels, or which may be utilized in the manufacture of any useful article 408 264 264 In a controversy between conflicting claimants to the same land, arising upon protest by a mineral locator against an application to purchase under the act of June 3, 1878 (ameuded by the act of August 4, 1892), where it appears that the land, when surveyed, was returned as of little if any value for agricultural purposes and chiefly valuable for the timber thereon, and the final proof submitted in support of such application appears to be sufficient in form and substance, the burden of proof at a hearing upon such protest rests upon the protestant. 400 Where in such a case the evidence fails to show that the land in controversy contains valuable deposits of mineral, and it appears that the discovery on the strength of which the mineral location was made consisted of the digging of a prospect hole to the depth of 10 feet, in which about 2 cents' worth of gold was found, and ample time and opportunity were afforded prior to the hearing to test the extent and value of the alleged mineral deposits, without any systematic or continuous prospecting or working of the claim having been done, it can not be held that such a location is a mining claim within the meaning of said act of June 3, 1878..... Timber Cutting. The act of July 1, 1898, conferred upon residents of the State of Idaho the same right to cut and remove timber from lands within the limits prescribed by said act, in the State of Wyoming, whether reserved or unreserved, as was enjoyed by the residents of Wyoming under the acts of March 3, 1891, and June 4, 1897 Toll Road. See Right of Way. 400 412 Page. The general provision in the act of August The owners of bounty land warrants is- 399 222 |