(2) in the District of Columbia, (3) in the insular and other dependencies of the United States (except Alaska, any "guano island," and the Luquillo national forest in Porto Rico); (4) national cemeteries and national military parks; (5) Indian lands, whether tribal or several (except laws for the disposal of tribal lands to nonIndians, or for the control of the national resources thereof); (6) lands held as administrative sites for governmental use (except laws for the disposal of such sites or for control of the natural resources thereof); (7) lands acquired in the enforcement of tax liens or for debt, or by compromise of claims made by the United States, or by devise, or by gift (with like exceptions); (8) lands held by the United States as lessee. (E) the following statutes repealed, expired, obsolete or of slight importance: (1) laws repealed before January, 1896; (2) laws under which private rights must have been initiated or official duties performed (if at all) before January, 1896; (3) laws creating, abolishing, or defining particular land districts (instead of which a list of existing land districts is given); (4) laws disposing of lands to particular persons or corporations, except for public or charitable uses; (5) laws granting sites to States or subdivisions thereof for mere administrative occupancy and not for the control of natural resources; (6) limitations imposed upon specific appropriations for a single fiscal year (except the fiscal year 1916); pilation (7) laws disposing of proceeds; (8) laws affecting single building sites or otherwise of petty significance. (F) laws which have been already compiled in Kappler's Indian Laws and Treaties (except a few of unusual importance which have been included notwithstanding). In selecting the material within the limits above defined, Method of com-use was first made of the two published volumes of the Index Analysis of the Federal statutes, covering the general and permanent law to 1907, and of the supplementary card index, bringing it down to date, recently prepared in the Legislative Reference Division. A check was made of the United States Compiled Statutes and of compilations made by the several public-land bureaus for their own use; also of statutes cited by Departmental regulations, instructions, and other documents. This was supplemented by a page to page search of the Revised Statutes and Statutes at Large and a further check of all statutes cited in the material thus collected. A card list was made of the whole collection and has served as a control throughout the work. The material thus selected has been mounted upon large Manila sheets and arranged as follows: Arrangement (1) Revised Statutes in order of sections; (2) Statutes at Large in order of volume and page. This is believed to be the most useful arrangement for printing, but the form of the collection (loose sheets) permits rearrangement for printing in some other order, if desired. Each section of the Revised Statutes is given in the form that is now in force (i. e., in the words in which it was recast in the latest amending act). The footnotes show the changes made by successive amendments. This style has also been followed for statutes recast by the Penal Code, and in a few other cases. Each section of the Revised Statutes and each act taken from the Statutes at Large is annotated to show (1) The place where it is found in United States (2) Earlier and later statutes on the same subject; (4) Later statutes that cite the principal statute, (5) Other statutes affecting land grants for railroad, wagon-road, canal, or river improvement subsidy, made or affected by the principal statute; (6) Regulations and instructions with express reference to and in administration of the principal statute issued by the Department of the Interior since the beginning of the Land Decisions (July, 1881); (7) Like regulations issued by the Secretary of Agriculture since the transfer of National Forest Administration to him (Feb. 1, 1905); and (8) Other explanatory matter. Annotations The following supplementary material has been prepared: Supplementary (1) A list of land statutes printed in Kappler's Indian Laws and Treaties (nearly all omitted from this compilation as explained above) showing where each is found in that collection; (2) A list of other land statutes in volumes 18-38 of the Statutes at Large that have been found and omitted; (3) A similar list for volumes 1-17 of the Statutes at Large. It is recommended that the titles in (1) and (2) be printed as inserts in their proper chronological places in the text of the compilation. These lists may, however, be printed in an appendix either separately or as a consolidated list, possibly omitting (3) as obsolete. material Land Office giving the acreage patented to the several states under the quantity, school, and agricultural college grants. The usefulness of this compilation to members of the committee and others who may consult it will depend largely on the care with which the subject index is prepared. This, of course, can not be made until the compilation is in page proof. It is estimated that it will take an experienced law indexer three or four months to prepare such an index as this material requires, for it can not be treated in a summary fashion like the ordinary documents, but must be precise and thorough so as to expose the whole of the existing law on a particular subject. It should cover not only the material here compiled, but also the land laws in Kappler's Indian Laws and Treaties, the latter to be distinguished in the index by the letter K. Such an index will be a key to all the public land laws of the United States of present practical importance. As an aid to the indexer there has been prepared a classified list of the statutes which have been included in the compilation according to a systematic arrangement of subject headings. Coincidently with the completion of the manuscript and its submission to the Committee there was reported as already in type another compilation of Land laws whose publication had been ordered by the Senate Committee on Public Lands, but of whose preparation no word had reached us. This (compiled by Mr. J. W. Keener, of the General Land Office) is, however, a much smaller work, of limited scope. It is a selection "of the principal United States Statutes of practical importance at the present time relating to the public lands." It contains only about one-third of the number of public land laws now in force, and comprises in print only 424 octavo pages, as against an estimated 1,792 pages for the compilation prepared by us. While reproducing marginal notes from the Revised Statutes and Statutes at Large, it has practically no other annotations. Our compilation, on the other hand, is very thoroughly annotated throughout, with reference to other statutes, administrative regulations, etc., and other explanatory matter. However convenient, therefore, to the administrative work of the Land Office, the Keener compilation does not appear adequate to the need of the Committees desiring to have before them all the existing legislation. We believe, therefore, that its issue should in no way debar the publication of the other compilation also. Respectfully submitted The Honorable HERBERT PUTNAM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE The Honorable THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUse of RepresENTATIVES 64394°-16-11 |