I would also call attention to House bill 3613 (Forty-fifth Congress, second session), to provide for the entry of lands by Indians under the homestead laws.

RAILROADS jniUOUGII INDIAN RESERVATIONS.

The revival of railroad building, and resumed construction of the Pacific and lateral roads, the lines of whose routes pass through Indian reservations, has entailed additional labor on this office. In some instances a right of way through the reservations is conferred by the treaty or agreement with the Indians; in others the treaties or acts of Congress creating the reservation are silent ou the subject; and, again, there is another class of cases where railroads pass through reserves which have been created by executive order and in which the Indians are mere tenants at will, possessing no permanent right to the lands upon which they are temporarily permitted to remain. In all these cases it becomes the duty of this office, as guardian of the interests of the Indians, to pass upon the applications of radroad companies for authority to enter thf reserves, whether for the purpose of making a preliminary survey or for the construction of the road.

As a precautionary measure, and whether a right of way has beeu guaranteed by treaty or other instrument, or not, upon an application by a railroad company for a right of way or permission to enter a reservation, the Indians interested are invariably assembled in council under the direction of the agent, and consulted as to their views and wishes in the matter, and as to the compensation to be required of the railroad company for the privilege sought. It is gratifying to remark that the Indians, recognizing the importance and necessity of these great commercial undertakings, have so far readily assented, stipulating only for a reasonable compensation, which has been promptly paid by the companies seeking the concession.

In this manner a right of way has been granted through the Sisseton Eeserve in Dakota to the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul Railway Company; through the Otoe and Missouria Reserve in Nebraska to the Republican Valley Railroad Company; through the Winnebago and Omaha Reserve in Nebraska to the Saint Paul and Sioux City Railroad Company, and through the Walker River Reservation in Nevada to the Carson and Colorado Railroad Company. Other applications for right of way through different reservations are on file and in process of determination.

On the great Sioux Reserve in Dakota, preliminary surveys are being made, with the consent of the Indians and under Indian escort, for the construction of two roads, viz, the Dakota Central Railroad and the extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul Railroad to the Black Hills. By an agreement, dated the 12th of June last, the Sioux Indians granted to the Dakota Ceidral Railway Company the right to occupy one section of land on the western bank of the Missouri River, at or near Fort Pierre, Dakota, for a freight depot; also the right to construct and operate a wagon road from such depot to intersect the wagon road running west from Fort Pierre to the Black Hills. Negotiations are pending with the Indians for the purchase by these companies of the right of way across the reservation, and although there has been some delay, owing to want of harmony between some of the bands, an early and satisfactory adjustment of the question of compensation is confidently expected.

TIMBER DEPREDATIONS UPON INDIAN RESERVATIONS.

ruder this heading, I desire to call attention to a bill (S. 1812) introduced at the last session of Congress, so extending the provisions of section 5388 Revised Statutes, and of other laws »f the United States for the protection and preservation of timber belonging to the United States, and for the punishment of offenders who cut, destroy, or take the same, as to make them apply to the preservation of timber on the following classes of Indian reservations, namely: Lands to which the original Indian title has never been extinguished, but which have not been specially reserved by treaty, act of Congress, or otherwise, for the use of the Indians, or for other purposes, although the Indians'right of occupancy thereof has been tacitly recognized by the government; lands expressly reserved by treaty or act of Congress, or set apart for the use of the Indians by executive order of the President; lands allotted or patented to individual Indians who are not under the laws of any State or Territory; lands patented to Indian tribes, and lands which have been purchased by or ceded to the United States for the purpose of settling Indians thereon, but which are as yet unoccupied. The punishment of offenders committing depredations upon such timber is also provided for by this bill.

It is absolutely necessary that some stringent law should be enacted to prevent the continually-recurring depredations upon timber on Indian reservations, and I earnestly recommend the early passage of the above bill.

SURVEYS OF RESERVATIONS AND INDIAN LANDS.

The necessity for establishing the boundaries of Indian reservations, where such are contiguous to land which is being taken up by white people for agricultural or mining purposes, is daily growing more urgent. Such boundaries ought to be surveyed and well marked out. There remain, unsurveyed, about 6,000 miles of reservation boundaries, onethird of which probably belong to the class above mentioned.

Where it has not yet been (lone, the arable lands of the reservations ought to be subdivided, to enable the agents to allot to individual Indians such quantities of land as may be directed, and bring into actual ose all such lands, even if they are not in the immediate neighborhood of the agencies.

It is to be hoped that appropriations will be made by Congress for these necessary surveys, which are so pressingly demanded to protect the interests of both the white settlers and the Indians.

INVASION OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY.

In February last information reached this office that a large number of persons were again organizing at various places in Southern Kansas for the purpose of entering the Indian Territory, and making settlements on lands therein which had been ceded to the government for Indian purposes. To encourage this movement, the promoters of the scheme had publicly represented that the President had changed his views in regard to the status of the lands in question since the issuance of his proclamation of April 26,18?9, and that in his last annual message he ha<l admitted that said lands were public and should be settled upon, and hence that they were violating neither the President's proclamation nor any law of the United States in emigrating to and locating upon such lands.

The attention of the President having been called to the matter by this department, he issued a second proclamation, dated the 12th of February last, which will be found herewith on page 323. This proclamation declared the representations made to be wholly without foundation, and to have originated only in the minds of evil-disposed persons, and again warned all parties who were intending or preparing to remove upon said lauds, or into the Indian Territory, without permission of the proper authorities, against any attempt to so remove and settle upon any of the lands of said Territory. It notified all persons so offending that they would be speedily removed therefrom by the Indian agents, and that, if necessary, the aid and assistance of the military would be invoked to carry into execution the laws of the United States in such case made and provided.

Upon the recommendation of this department, a proper disposition of troops was made by the War Department along the line between the Indian Territory and Kansas, to prevent uuauthorized persons from entering the Territory, and details were made for the arrest and removal of such intruders as might be found within its borders. These precautious resulted in the arrest, by the military, on or about the 15th of May last, of one D. L. Payne, the recognized leader of the movement, and some eleven of his followers, who had established a camp at a point about 40 miles east of Fort Reno, and about a mile and a half south of the Xorth Fork of the Canadian. Pursuant to the order of the Secretary of War, the intruders were conducted outside the Territory and there discharged, with a warning not to return.

On the 15th of July last Payne and some twenty associates were again discovered in the Indian Territory; were again arrested by the United States forces, and, in pursuance of the order of the President turned over to the United States marshal for the western district of Arkansas, to be held for prosecution under the United States laws relating to intruders iu the Indian country. The prisoners were subsequently released on bail to appear tor trial at the November term of the United States district court.

In this connection I desire to call attention to the recommendation, hereinbefore made under the head of "legislation," for an amendment to the laws relating to trespassers upon Indian reservations.

SAN CARLOS AGENCY.

The reduction of a wild, roving, defiant, and hostile tribe to a condition of obedience to, and dependence on, the United States Government, and the organization from its own members of an Indian police force, which, for six years, has rendered remarkably efficient service, is the work which has been accomplished in the case of the San Carlos Apaches. That they are inclined to agriculture is shown by the persevering efforts made to construct irrigating ditches and raise small fields of grain, and that they are also ready to have their children educated is shown by their repeated requests that a school might be furnished them. A boarding school building is now in course of erection, for which the Indians are manufacturing the adobes, and steps have been taken to have a subtantial dam built and suitable ditches laid out by a competent engineer, which will afford these Indians an opportunity to make some progress toward self-support.

They are becoming discouraged with the slight success winch has followed their own undirected and unskillful attempts to open ditches; but with the help of a brush-dam, built during the year, under the supervision of Captain Chaffee, temporarily in charge as agent, they have managed to cultivate about 100 acres and to raise 4,000 bushels of wheat, corn, and barley.

In order to become owners of stock-cattle, several families allowed their beef tickets to accumulate until they were entitled to one or more cows, and in that way obtained the nucleus of a herd. This interest in stock-raising has been fostered and stimulated by the issue to them, within a year, of 1,100 head of stock-cattle, which have been highly prized and well cared for by their Indian owners, especially such as have learned to milk the cows, and are beginning to appreciate the value of milk as an article of diet.

There seems to be no foundation for the charge that the San Carlos Indians have aided or abetted Victoria in his lawless raids. On the contrary, the San Carlos Apaches suffered by the depredations of Victoria on their sheep and cattle, and by his attack on a party of Coyoteros at Eagle Creek, in which 11 Coyotero Apaches were killed. Two womon were also killed by white soldiers, who mistook them for a part of Victoria's band. The readiness with which groundless rumors of depredations on the part of these Indians can be started is shown in the following extract from the agent's report:

On the 19th of May n report rume from General Caw, an operator of the telegraph at Tres Alamos, that Indians hail committed serious depredations at Bunker Hill .Mining Camp; also, that reservation Indians had gone on the war path in that vicinity. The chief of scouts was sent immediately to ascertain the truth, and returned on the 23d, reporting not a word of truth to exist in the case. No Indians had been seen there for two weeks, save peaceable Indians farming at the Sail Pedro Itiver—Es-kim-izines' and Sagul-Iy's hand. Two miners, in a drunken quarrel, had killed each other, and on lindyig the bodies it had been attributed to Indians.

The subject of a water supply, which is an all-important one throughout Arizona, becomes a grave one whenever it concerns an Indian reservation, the prevailing opinion being that Indians have no water rights which white men are bound to respect. Although the San Carlos Keserve is comparatively well supplied with streams, and although scarcely a beginning in farming has been made, the water question is already assuming serious proportions. The agent reports:

The water in Gila is being rapidly depleted by largo quantities being taken out by ditchA in the vicinity of Pueblo Veijo, twenty miles above Camp Thomas, and a fifteen-foot ditch now being dug by the Mormons in that vicinity will, in low-water, seriously damage the water privileges on this reservation. If there is any law in regard to this it should he enforced, so that the Indians can be protected in their water rights, a matter of vital importance to their advancement and civilization, as work and education are the foundations for their moral elevation.

Unless obstructions of this character are placed in the way, there is no doubt that the "intractable Apache" can, in a few years, be taught to raise the greater part of his own subsistence, provided he is given a reasonable amount of assistance and instruction, instead of being left to become disheartened by failures resulting from his own ignorance.

MISSION INDIANS.

The condition of the Mission Indians of California becomes, yearly, more deplorable. These Indians are composed of the following tribes, viz: Serauos, Digencs, San Luis Key, Coahuillas, and Owongos. They are estimated to number about .'3,000, and their settlements are scattered over portions of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties, and chiefly in the mountain and desert districts embraced in a range hundreds of miles in extent.

In the last annual report of this office these Indians were made the subject of special mention. Attention was drawn to the fact that many of them were occupying, by sufferance, lands which their ancestors had cultivated from time immemorial, and to which they supposed they had an indisputable right; but that such lands had been found to be within the limits of private land claims confirmed by the courts to grantees under the Mexican Government, before the acquisition of California by the United States; and that the owners thereof were threatening the Indians with summary ejectment.

Legislation, to provide them with suitable and permanent homes, was urgently recommended, but beyond the introduction by Representative Page, of California, of a bill (H. R. 3728, 4Gth Congress, 2d session), appropriating the sum of 8100,000 for the purchase of San Ysabel Raucho, in San Diego County, which, it may be remarked, is wholly unfitted for the purposes of a reservation, no action was taken in Congress.

By executive order, dated the 17th of January last, a prior executive order, dated December 27,1875, was canceled (so far as it related to the Aqua Caliente Reservation and a portion of the Santa Ysabel Reservation), as being in conflict with certain prior land grants, severally known as the "San Jose del Valle" and "Valle de San Jose.'? Referring to this order, Agent Lawson, in his report for the current year, says:

In conversation a few days ago with the present owner of the ranche (San Jose del Valle), he informed me he was ahout to sell it, and before lie could give possession the Indians must be removed. What these people will do in this event, or where they can be placed, so as to find subsistence in this sterile region of country, are questions that I am not able to answer. This is the situation of an equally large body of Indians now occupying the Rancho San Jacinto, their ejectment being liable to occur at any time. This, in short, is the situation all around; and there being no unoccupied public lands, except such as are uninhabitable, the only alternative left to these hitherto peaceable and thrifty communities is to wander about singly or by families to swell the vagabond class that already infests the villages and towns, to become a prey to vices to which, as yet, they are comparative strangers.

The agent also reports that about fifteen families under similar circumstances were a few months ago forced to remove from the Cucco Ranch, in San Diego County.

In the season of 1870 the supply of water for irrigating purposes on the desert, some 50 to 80 miles distant from the agency, where hundreds of these Indians live, entirely failed, and they were compelled to depend for subsistence upon a wild bean which grows in the desert. Never having received any aid from government, and being accustomed to the miserable destitution enforced by their helplessness, they endured hunger and want without seeking or expecting aid. Then, for the first time in their history, their agent, learning of their condition, applied for assistance, and the department promptly responded by ordering a sum of $500 to be expended in supplies to relieve their wants.

The Mission Indians as a class are reported to be industrious, sustaining themselves by cultivating their little fields or in laboring for ranchmen in the vicinity of their villages. During the sheep-shearing season their services are greatly in demand, as they are especially skilled in this kind of labor. In the interest of common humanity something should be done for this uncomplaining people towards providing them with a home. They do not ask for supplies. All they ask for is a reser