The court work during the year shows highly satisfactory results. Three cases against the Secretary were decided favorably by the Supreme Court of the United States-in two, adverse judgments in the court of appeals having been reversed. The court of appeals decided seven cases in which the Secretary was involved. Of these, two (in one of which this office did not appear for the Secretary) were decided against the department. Eighteen cases were disposed of in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, in three instances adversely. In one of these the department took no appeal, leaving the decision final, and making the fourth case during the last 10 years where final judgment has been against the department. Another was a case not defended by this office. And the third, State of New Mexico v. Lane (being the one lost also in the court of appeals), is now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States, where it invites final judgment on the question, very important in the administration of public-land laws, as to when a State acquires a vested interest in land embraced in a selection list. Another interesting case decided at nisi prius involves the administrative ruling of February 15, 1917 (46 L. D., 32), construing the statutes governing soldiers' additional rights; with which construction the court agrees. Six cases have been argued and submitted, with no decision rendered at the close of the fiscal year. Eleven new suits were filed within the year. There are now pending: United States Supreme Court, 8; court of appeals, 4; Supreme Court of the District, 32; in all, 44. There are two other cases, decided in favor of the Secretary of the Interior by the court of appeals, potentially pending, where the right of appeal has not expired. Aside from these cases, this office represented the Government, unsuccessfully, in another case at the request of the solicitor general.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE.

Area of land entered and patented.-The total area of public and Indian lands originally entered and allowed during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919, is 11,863,672.28 acres, not including 137,403.27 acres embraced in finals not heretofore counted as original dispositions of land. The latter area is constituted as follows: Public auction, 104,721.15 acres; abandoned military reservations, 7,509.29 acres; cash and private sales, individual claimants and small-holding claims, 14,090.26 acres; pre-emption entries, 86.26 acres; and soldiers' additional homesteads, 10,996.31 acres. The area of 11,863,672.28 acres is an increase of 1,889,340.67 acres, as compared with the area Driginally entered and allowed during the fiscal year 1918. This increase in allowed entries is due to the stock-raising homestead act of December 29, 1916, 5,559,235.11 acres having been allowed under that act.

The area patented during the fiscal year is 10,777,001.349 acres, an increase of 1,224,519.132 acres, as compared with the fiscal year 1918. Of the above area 8,312,318.888 acres were patented under the homestead laws, an increase of 1,819,521.072 acres, not including as homesteads 13,334.12 acres patented as soldiers' additional entries.

Cash receipts and expenditures.--The total cash receipts from the sales of public lands, including fees and commissions ($1,194,472.10), sales of reclamation town sites ($43,863.86), and sales of lands in the Oregon & California Railroad grant ($114,008.32), for the fiscal year 1919 were $2,817,063.27. The total receipts from the sales of Indian land were $1,387,781.74. Other receipts aggregated $98,829.19. The total receipts of this bureau during the fiscal year 1919 were $1,303,674.20.

The total expenses of district land offices for salaries and commissions of registers and receivers and incidental expenses during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919, were $794,984.62. The aggregate expenditures and estimated liabilities of the public land service, including expenses of district land offices and surveys made from the appropriations for surveying the public lands outside of railroad land grant limits, were $3,026,554.46, leaving a net surplus of $1,277,119.74 of receipts over expenditures. Disbursements from the following special deposit trust funds and reimbursable appropriations are not included in the above figures as receipts or expenditures: From deposits by individuals for surveying the public lands, $47,020.65; from surveying within land grants (reimbursable), $12,572.36; from opening Indian reservations (reimbursable), $2,672.93; and from surveying and allotting Indian reservations (reimbursable), $54,705.49.

Field service.-As the result of investigations in the field, $101,298.96 were collected and turned into the United States Treasury; in addition to this sum, $10,944.41 have been placed in the Treasury as royalty on coal mined during the past year from a tract in Colorado, as well as $26,193.35 as royalty from a coal lease in Wyoming. As a result of field investigations 164,363.83 acres have been restored to the public domain; of this acreage 85,323.83 acres were restored to open range by abatement of unlawful inclosures without suit.

Special agents have investigated and reported on 17,399 cases, 3,447 of which were adversely and 13,952 favorably reported. Two hundred and fifty-two hearings in Government contest cases have been held. Civil suits in 65 cases were recommended to the Department of Justice as the result of investigations during the year. Eighty-six were tried in court, of which 60 were won and 26 lost. As the result of the successful suits, $43,895.94 was recovered and

8,091.26 acres were restored to the public domain, of which 6,180 acres had been unlawfully inclosed.

Of the criminal cases tried during the year, 14 resulted in convictions, under which there were six prison sentences imposed and fines amounting to $1,000 paid.

The prevalence of forest fires on public lands is noted, and the expenditure of money from our appropriation for protecting the public lands as a consequence, and the urgent necessity of a special appropriation for protecting such timber from forest fires, as well as for the reimbursement of the fund for protecting public lands to the extent that it may have been depleted by this cause.

Oil land claims.-California: Referring to the Commissioner's annual report for 1917 for a full statement as to the situation in the oil fields in California and Wyoming in the matter of claims pending in the Land Department and before the courts, and the main questions involved therein, additional data is furnished in tabulated form necessary to bring the oil story up to date, as well as a summary of the present status of proceedings in the courts and in the department.

Wyoming: Additional withdrawals aggregating 98,018 acres were made during the fiscal year and 931 acres were restored as nonoil. On June 30, 1919, 1,180,987 acres were embraced within existing withdrawals. During the year 19 applications for patent, embracing 3,040 acres of land in the withdrawn area, were rejected, and patent was issued on one application embracing 32.22 acres. Patent also issued on two other applications outside of withdrawn area aggregating 100.16 acres. Ten new applications embracing 1,440 acres were filed, and at the end of the fiscal year 58 applications for patent embracing approximately 8,880 acres were pending.

Oil contracts. At the end of the year there were 40 contracts under the act of August 25, 1914 (38 Stat., 708), in operation in California, embracing 4,165 acres. The production from the tracts covered by these contracts up to June 30 was 8,270,657.92 barrels of crude oil, 709,725,978 metered feet of dry gas, and 698,816 gallons of gasoline, the escrow deposits thereunder amounting to $1,152,523.48. In Wyoming nine contracts, covering approximately 800 acres of land in the Salt Creek field, are in force, 27 contracts during the year having been discontinued on the increase of the escrow deposit called for. The total production in Wyoming under these contracts during the year was 9,545,131.20 barrels of crude oil; 286,836,682 metered feet of gas, the escrow deposits amounting to $3,172,482.36. The total production in both California and Wyoming under these agreements has resulted in escrow deposits of $4,325,005.84.

Operations on two 40-acre tracts in the Grass Creek Field held under State leases not covered by agreements under the act of Au

gust 25, 1914, have resulted in an escrow deposit under special agreement of $2,119,306.58.

Under arrangement with the operators in California and Wyoming, including those operating in Grass Creek, under lease from the State, $1,192,400 of the escrow deposits were invested in Fourth Liberty loan bonds and $1,436,750 in Victory loan notes, which, with the $2,114,850 theretofore invested in Liberty bonds of the first three issues, makes a total of $4,744,000 so invested.

"Ferry" or "Caddo Lake" oil lands in Louisiana.-The pendency of litigation on behalf of the United States in the United States District Court, western district of Louisiana, of 18 suits involving the "Ferry" or "Caddo Lake" oil lands was mentioned in his prior report with a brief statement of the facts leading thereto. These suits came up for trial during the spring and summer of 1918. The total amount which the Government sought to recover in the 18 suits was $614,942.27 and nearly 100 parties, including a number of leading oil companies, were made defendants. On January 11, 1919, the master in chancery filed his report in 17 of the suits recommending decrees in favor of the Government, quieting title to the lands and awarding damages in excess of $400,000. In the other suit an award. favorable to the Government was made with damages to the amount of $62,581.85. The findings of the master were sustained in a decision handed down by the court July 15, 1919. By this decree the Government has its title to approximately 617 acres of oil lands quieted and obtains possession of 23 producing oil wells, and is awarded the sum of $462,903.39..

An additional suit has been instituted on the recommendation of the Land Department against certain companies to quiet title to alleged unappropriated, unreserved public lands and to recover the sum of $317,919.38, the value of oil extracted therefrom.

Arkansas "sunk and lake lands."-Since the issuance of the last annual report the work relative to these lands has been largely in the nature of a cleaning-up process. After the decision of the United States Supreme Court, November 5, 1917, in the case of Lee Wilson & Co. against the United States, the Government was enabled to proceed rapidly with the prosecution of its recovery of these lands, and the past year has witnessed the accomplishment of a large amount of work in that direction. A favorable decree was obtained by the Government on June 25, 1919, in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Arkansas, in the case of United States against Chapman & Dewey Land Co. et al., by which the title was quieted in the United States to an area of approximately 54,000 acres, largely agricultural and timbered lands said to be worth about $50 per acre, or $2,700,000.

On June 21, 1919, the Government also obtained a decree in the same court in the case of the United States against John W. Walker et al., involving approximately 700 acres of land. This case is important on account of its value as a precedent. The commissioner makes a full statement of the work accomplished in this field and adds that besides the recovery of the lands noted the Government has also collected and covered into the United States Treasury $48,719.97 for timber cut in trespass and removed from the lands. The lands involved in these proceedings were erroneously omitted from the original surveys and have now been restored to the public domain,. and most of them are at present included in homestead entries. To date 165 patents have been issued placing the title to about 19,000 acres in private ownership.

Surveys.-The accepted surveys and resurveys for the fiscal year ended is 7,668,514 acres.

The act of September 21, 1918 (40 Stat., 965), provides for an enlargement of the resurvey work, the Government being thereby authorized to resurvey townships heretofore held to be ineligible for resurvey on account of the excess private ownership therein. Suitable regulations for procedure under the terms of this act have been promulgated.

The work of the eastern surveying district includes the miscellaneous fragmentary public lands surveys and examinations and Indian surveys in those States where the former United States surveyor general's offices have been discontinued and the work in this field has been unusually active and productive of results during the year that is past.

Special attention is also called to the surveys in Alaska, with a sketch of their progress from point to point, in order to anticipate the needs of settlers and the development of the territory, particularly in view of the country already opened up by the construction of the Government railroad and the future progress of this enterprise.

The showing made in the offices of surveyors general is especially commended by the commissioner on account of the large reduction of arrearages accomplished in several of the States. Attention is called to the controversies that have arisen over lands lying along Red River where it constitutes the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas. The discovery of oil in this neighborhood has given a sudden value to these lands and the boundary questions will probably be settled in the courts, as the United States has already instituted proceedings for the protection of the rights of certain Indian allottees as riparian owners to adjacent lands.

Drafting and map making.-The edition of the 1919 United States map was only 8,519 copies, while that of the 1918 edition was 15,000 copies, the difference being due to the increased cost, owing to ad