by any claimant for pension, bounty land, or other allowance required to be adjusted or paid by the Pension Office, to furnish such person, free of charge or expense, all such printed instructions and forms as may be necessary in establishing and obtaining his claim. On the issuing of a certificate of pension or of a bounty land warrant, he is required to notify the claimant, and also the agent or attorney in the case, if there be one, that such certificate has been issued or that his allowance has been made, and to state in the notice the date and amount of such allowance. (R. S., § 4748.)

1289. It is his duty to forward the certificate of a pension granted in any case to the agent for paying pensions where such certificate is made payable, and at the same time to forward therewith one of the articles of agreement filed in the case and approved by the Commissioner, setting forth the fee agreed upon between the claimant and the attorney or agent. Where no agreement is on file, he is required to direct that a fee of ten dollars only be paid. (R. S., § 4768.)

1290. By act of June 20, 1878, (Stats. 20, p. 243,) the foregoing provision is not to apply to any claim thereafter filed, nor to any pending case in which the claimant has not been represented by attorney prior to the passage of this act. The same act makes it unlawful for any attorney or other person to demand or receive for services in a pension case a greater fee than ten dollars, and prohibits the filing of any fee contract thereafter with the Commissioner

of Pensions.

1291. He is authorized to cause, as frequently as he may deem proper, examinations to be made by examining surgeons of invalid pensioners, in order to ascertain the degree or continuance of the disability. (R. S., § 4772.)

1232. He is authorized to organize, in his discretion,

boards of examining surgeons, whose members are not to exceed three in number, and to issue his certificate of their examinations, whereon they shall receive their fees as provided by law. And he may require such examining surgeons, or others employed in the Pension Office from time to time, to make special examinations of pensioners or applicants for pensions. When injustice is alleged to have been done by an examination so ordered, the Commissioner may, at his discretion, select a board of three duly-appointed examining surgeons, to meet at a place designated by him, and to review such cases as may be ordered before them on appeal from any special examination. Their decision is to be final, provided the Commissioner approves the same. (R. S., §§ 4774, 4775.)

1293. He has control and direction of the duly-qualified surgeon which the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to appoint as medical referee. (R. S., § 4776.)

1294. The Commissioner is empowered to appoint, at his discretion, civil surgeons to make the periodical examinations of invalid pensioners which are required by law, and to examine applicants for invalid pensions where he deems such an examination necessary. (R. S., § 4777.)

1295. He is required to cause to be paid to such soldiers as the Surgeon-General of the Army may certify as electing to receive money computation instead of limbs or apparatus, the amount so certified to be due to each, in the same manner as pensions are paid. (R. S., § 4789.)

THE PENSION OFFICE.

1296. In this office are received and adjusted all claims of parties entitled under various laws to pensions by reason of military service performed for the United States. It prepares and revises the lists of pensioners; directs all examinations of pensioners entitled to or claim

1187. Payments are prohibited by any officer of the United States to contractors for supplies, transportation, buildings, or machinery, on the receipts or certificates of the Indian agents or superintendents, beyond fifty per cent. of the amount due, until the accounts and vouchers shall have been submitted to the executive committee of the Board of Indian Commissioners for examination and approval. These accounts and vouchers, after passing the scrutiny of the board, are required by law to be forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior for his final determination. (R. S., § 2107.)

while in the line of his duty, from procuring his subsistence by manual labor.

3. Any person serving for the time being in the militia of a State, under orders of a United States officer, or who volunteered for the time being to serve with any regularlyorganized military or naval force of the United States, or who otherwise volunteered and rendered service in any engagement with rebels or Indians, disabled by reason of wounds or injuries received in the line of duty; provided that the claim shall be prosecuted to a successful issue prior to July 4, 1874.

4. Any acting assistant or contract surgeon disabled by any wound or injury received or disease contracted in the line of duty, while actually performing the duties of assistant or acting assistant surgeon with a military force in the field, in transitu, or in hospital.

5. Any provost or deputy provost marshal or enrolling officer disabled by reason of any wound or injury so received from procuring a subsistence by manual labor. (R. S., § 4693.)

6. Officers and privates of the Missouri State militia and of the provisional State militia disabled by reason of injury received or disease contracted in the line of duty, while such militia was co-operating with United States forces, the pension not to commence prior to March 3, 1873. (R. S., § 4722.)

7. Any officer, warrant or petty officer, seaman, engineer, first, second, or third assistant engineer, fireman or coalheaver of the navy, or any marine, disabled prior to the 4th of March, 1861, by reason of an injury received or disease contracted in the service and line of duty. (R. S., § 4728.)

8. Any officer, non-commissioned officer, musician, or private disabled likewise in the war with Mexico, or in

1190. All the public lands are required, where practicable, to be divided by north and south lines, run according to the true meridian, also by others crossing them at right angles, and to be formed into townships of six miles square. These townships are required to be subdivided into thirty-six sections, each section to contain, as near as may be, six hundred and forty acres, or one mile square of land. Any number of contiguous townships north or south of each other constitute a range. The townships bear numbers, in respect of the base line, either north or south of it; and the tiers of townships or ranges bear numbers, in respect of the meridian line, according to their relative position to it, either on the east or west. The sections are numbered consecutively, beginning with number one, the northeast section, and proceeding then west to and including number six; thence alternating east and west with progressive numbers until the thirty-six are completed. Further subdivisions of these sections into tracts of one hundred and sixty acres are designated quarter sections, viz., northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest quarters.

1191. In Nevada, Oregon, and California, when deemed advisable, a departure may be made from this rectangular form of surveys.

1192. The statutes designate by boundaries ninety-three land districts, and fix the location therein of the respective land offices; but this designation may be varied, but not increased, by the President and the Secretary of the Inte rior as the public interests may seem to require.

PRE-EMPTIONS.

1193. Every person being a head of a family, or widow, or single person over the age of twenty-one years and a citizen of the United States, or having filed a declaration of intention under the naturalization laws, who has made a