In the case of Julia B. Keeler (31 L. D., 354), it is said that:

The requirement of compactness of form will be held to be complied with on surveyed lands, when a section, or part thereof, is described by legal subdivisions compact with each other, as nearly in the form of a technical section as the situation of the land and its relation to other lands will admit of, although parts of two or more sections be taken to make up the quantity or equivalent of one section.

From an examination of the record and the plat filed therewith, together with the affidavit of the applicant accompanying the appeal, it appears that the claim, if enlarged as aforesaid, will be as compact in form as the situation of the said land and its relation to other adjacent lands capable of being irrigated and reclaimed will admit of, and that the rule as to compactness of form will not be violated by the allowance of the proposed addition. As it appears from the report of the local officers to your office, under date of August 5, 1903, that Pollard had, on February 10, 1903, filed first and second years' proof on her entry, said entry will therefore not be canceled but will be allowed to stand, subject to future compliance with the law. It further appearing that the signature of the officer before whom the affidavits in support of Pollard's aforesaid application were sworn to and subscribed is omitted therefrom, the said papers will be returned for the purpose of having the signature of said officer attached thereto, and then, if there be no objection, other than those herein specified, Pollard will be allowed to include in her original entry the land applied for by her.

The decision of your office is accordingly reversed.

SOLDIERS' ADDITIONAL HOMESTEAD CERTIFICATE—ACT OF AUGUST 18, 1894.

F. W. MCREYNOLDS.

The provision in the act of August 18, 1894, validating certain soldiers' additional homestead certificates therein described, applies only to such certificates in existence at the date of the passage of the act.

Acting Secretary Ryan to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, (F. L. C.) July 15, 1904. (V. B.)

F. W. McReynolds has filed, and the Department has considered, a motion for review of its unreported decision of February 23, 1904, affirming that of your office which refused to certify to him and in his name the alleged unused portion of the certificate of additional right of homestead entry, issued August 13, 1881, to Jonathan Tice, for 52.20 acres, said unused portion being 12.80 acres.

No specification of errors is filed with said motion, but an elaborate argument by counsel is presented which will be treated as a specification, the only question involved being one of law.

The essential facts of this case are that on April 4, 1872, Tice, hav

ing served in the army of the United States, made homestead entry at Ionia, Michigan, for 107.20 acres. March 12, 1879, he made an additional homestead entry of 40 acres at Taylors Falls, Minnesota. This last entry, being of land within the Mille Lac Indian reservation, was canceled by order of the Secretary on May 21, 1879. October 15, 1880, on application made in behalf of Tice, a certificate of right was issued to him for 52.80 acres. On August 7, 1882, the Secretary ordered that the Taylors Falls entry be reinstated. September 24, 1891, the attorney of Tice, being called upon, surrendered the certificate of right theretofore issued, which had not been located, and it was canceled. The additional entry of 40 acres was reinstated and on October 3, 1891, patent was issued therefor.

Subsequently, McReynolds, as assignee, filed an application in your office for a recertification to him and in his name of the unused portion of said certificate of additional right, which application was, as before stated, rejected by you.

It is contended by the movant that the said certificate of right was confirmed by the act of August 18, 1894 (28 Stat., 397), which is as follows:

That all soldiers' additional homestead certificates heretofore issued under the rules and regulations of the General Land Office . . . . shall be and are hereby declared to be valid notwithstanding any attempted sale or transfer thereof.

The question thus presented, and this is the only one in the case, has been before the Department in several cases and decided adversely to the present contention, the Department holding that the act only confirmed certificates which were in existence at the date of its passage. As this certificate had been canceled long prior to the passage of the act, it was held, and must be now held, that the act has no application whatever to it. The correctness of the view of the Department is fully confirmed by the decision of the Supreme Court in the analogous case of Parsons e. Venzke (164 U. S., 89, 91). That case arose under the confirmatory provisions of section 7 of the act of March 3, 1891 (26) Stat., 1995), which provided—

that all entries made under the pre-emption, homestead, desert-land, or timberculture laws, in which final proof and payment may have been made and certificates issued and to which there are no adverse claims originating prior to final entry and which have been sold or incumbered prior to the first day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight, and after final entry, to bona fide purchasers or incumbrancers, for a valuable consideration, shall, unless, upon an investigation by a Government agent, fraud on the part of a purchaser has been found, be confirmed and patented upon presentation of satisfactory proof to the land department of such sale or incumbrance.

It was sought to apply the confirmatory provisions of that act to an entry which had been canceled before its passage. The court said, on page 91:

We think that statute inapplicable. It was passed long after the action of the land department in cancelling the entry and restoring the land to the public domain, and 3685-Vol. 33-04-8

when there was no subsisting entry to be confirmed. The theory of the plaintiff in error is that the act applies to all entries which had ever been made prior thereto, whether subsisting or cancelled. But clearly it refers to only subsisting entries.

Again, on page 92, the court says:

The term used in the section, "confirmed," implies existing contracts which, though voidable, have not been avoided, and not contracts which once existed but have long since ceased to be.

With the motion for review is filed the affidavit of Tice, wherein he swears that he never authorized the surrender of the original certificate or its cancellation. This statement, in view of the record facts in the case, will not affect the judgment of the Department.

For the reasons stated, and upon consideration of said motion and the argument of counsel therewith, no reason is seen for disturbing the departmental decision, and, none appearing otherwise, the motion for review is denied.

REGULATIONS CONCERNING THE LOCATION AND PATENTING OF COAL LANDS IN THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA.

CIRCULAR.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., July 18, 1904.

The following instructions, issued under the act of Congress approved April 28, 1904 (33 Stat., 525), entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to extend the coal-land laws to the district of Alaska,' approved June 6, 1900" (31 Stat., 658), are for the guidance of the local officers in their administration of the law and for the information of those concerned in its provisions.

Section 1 of said act provides, among other things —

That any person or association of persons qualified to make entry under the coalland laws of the United States, who shall have opened or improved a coal mine or coal mines on any of the unsurveyed public lands of the United States in the district of Alaska, may locate the lands upon which such mine or mines are situated, in rectangular tracts containing forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty acres, with north and south boundary lines run according to the true meridian, by marking the four corners thereof with permanent monuments, so that the boundaries thereof may be readily and easily traced.

Persons or associations of persons locating coal lands in the district of Alaska under this provision of the act are required to possess the qualifications of persons or associations making entry under the general coal-land laws of the United States, and the requirements in this particular are to be found in the coal-land circular approved July 31, 1882 [1 L. D., 687; paragraphs 30 and 31 amended, 32 L. D., 382]. The requirement of the statute with respect to the form of the tract

sought to be entered is construed to mean that the boundary lines of each entry must be run in cardinal directions-i. e., due north and south and east and west lines, by reference to a true meridian (not magnetic) with the exception of meander lines on meanderable streams and navigable waters forming a part of the boundary lines of a location. Those meander lines which form part of the boundary of a claim will be run according to the directions in the Manual of Surveying Instructions, but other boundary lines will be run in true east and west and north and south directions, thus forming rectangles, except at intersections with meandered lines.

The permanent monuments to be placed at each of the four corners of the tract located may consist of—

First. A stone at least 24 inches long, set 12 inches in the ground, with a conical mound of stone 14 feet high, 2 feet base, alongside.

Second. A post at least 3 feet long by 4 inches square, set 18 inches in the ground and surrounded by a substantial mound of stone or earth. Third. A rock in place; and, whenever possible, the identity of all corners should be perpetuated by taking courses and distance to bearing trees, rocks or other objects, permanent objects being selected for bearings whenever possible.

It is further provided by the first section of the act that within one year from the date of the passage of the act, or within one year from making the location, the locators shall file for record in the recording district and with the register and receiver of the land district in which the land is located or situated, a notice containing the name or names of the locator or locators, the date of the location, the description of the lands located, and a reference to such natural objects or permanent monuments as will readily identify the same. In other words, the notice should contain a complete description in every particular of the claim as it is marked and monumented upon the ground.

By the second section of the act the locator or his assigns is allowed three years from the date of filing the notice prescribed in the first section of the act within which to file an application with the local land officers for a patent for the land claimed. It will thus be seen that persons or associations of persons claiming coal lands in that district at the date of the passage of the act have four years from location within which to present their applications to purchase the same, and persons or associations of persons locating thereafter have the same period of time within which they may apply for patent; and patents may be issued to the locators or their assigns who are citizens of the United States.

Persons or associations of persons who fail to record their notices within the time prescribed by the first section of the act, or fail to file application for patent in the time prescribed by the second section, will be considered as having forfeited their rights, providing a

valid adverse right has intervened, and parties who file after the time prescribed do so at their own risk.

With the application for patent the claimant must file a certified copy of the plat of survey and field notes thereof made by a United States deputy surveyor or a United States mineral surveyor, duly approved by the surveyor-general for the district of Alaska. Under this clause of the act it will be allowable for the claimant, at his own expense, to procure the making of a survey by one of the officials mentioned without first making application to the surveyor-general, but the survey when made is to be submitted to and approved by the surveyor-general, and by him numbered serially.

The survey must be made in strict conformity with or be embraced within the lines of the location as appears from the record thereof in the recording district, and must be made in accordance with the rules laid down in the circular relative to mining claims, approved December 18, 1903 [31 L. D., 453; 32 L. D., 367], and covered by paragraphs 115 to 169 thereof, so far as the same may be applicable.

Upon the presentation of an application for patent, as provided by section 2, if no reason appears for rejecting the application, the same will be received by the register and receiver and the claimant required to publish a notice of such application for the period of sixty days in a newspaper in the district of Alaska published nearest the location of the particular lands, and the register will post a copy of such notice in his office for the same period. When the notice is published in a weekly newspaper, 9 consecutive insertions are necessary. When in a daily newspaper, the notice must appear in each issue for 61 consecutive issues. In both cases the first day of issue must be excluded in estimating the period of sixty days.

The notice so published and posted must embrace all the data given in the notice posted upon the claim. In addition to such data, the published notice must further indicate the locus of the claim by giving the connecting line as shown by the field notes and plat between a corner of the claim and a United States mineral monument or a corner of the public survey, if there is one, and fix the boundaries of the claim by courses and distances.

At the same time the claimant will be required to cause a copy of such notice, together with the certified copy of the official plat of survey, to be posted upon the land applied for in a conspicuous place.

The publication in the newspaper and the posting upon the land and in the local land office must cover the same period of time.

Upon the expiration of the sixty days' period prescribed the claimant may file in the local land office a sworn statement from the office of publication, to which shall be attached a copy of the notice published, to the effect that the notice was published for the statutory period, giving the first and last day of such publication, and his own