until the admission of said Territory as a State shall be determined on by Congress. SEC. 8. That all grants of land made in quantity or as indemnity by this act shall be selected by the governor of the Territory of New Mexico, the surveyor-general of the Territory of New Mexico, and the solicitor-general of said Territory, acting as a commission, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, from the unappropriated public lands of the United States within the limits of the said Territory of New Mexico. SEC. 9. That said commission shall proceed, upon the passage of this act, to select said lands, for each purpose as herein before designated, in legal subdivisions. of not less than one-quarter section, and shall report to the Secretary of the Interior such selections, designating in such report the purpose for which such bodies of land are selected are to be respectively used as provided above in this act. SEC. 10. That the lands reserved for university purposes, including all saline lands, and sections sixteen and thirty-six reserved for public schools. may be leased under such laws and regulations as may be hereafter prescribed by the legislative assembly of said Territory; but until the meeting of the next legislature of said Territory the governor, secretary of the Territory, and the solicitor general shall constitute a board for the leasing of said lands; and all necessary expenses and costs incurred in the leasing, management and protection of said lands and leases may be paid out of the proceeds derived from such leases. And it shall be unlawful to cut, remove or appropriate in any way any timber growing upon the lands leased under the provisions of this act, and not more than one section of land shall be leased to any one person, corporation or association of persons, and no lease shall be made for a longer period than five years, and all leases shall terminate on the admission of said Territory as a State; and all moneys received on account of such leases in excess of actual expenses necessarily incurred in connection with the execution thereof shall be placed to the credit of separate funds for the use of said institutions, and shall be paid out only as directed by the legislative assembly of said Territory, and for the purposes indicated herein. The remainder of the lands granted by this act, except those lands which may be leased only as above provided, may be sold under such laws and regulations as may be hereafter prescribed by the legislative assembly of said Territory; and all such necessary costs and expenses as may be incurred in the management, protection, and sale of said lands inay be paid out of the proceeds derived from such sales; and not more than one-quarter section of land shall be sold to any one person, corporation or association of persons, and no sale of said lands or any portion thereof shall be made for less than one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre: and all moneys received on account of such sales, after deducting the actual expenses necessarily incurred in connection with the execution thereof, shall be placed to the credit of separate funds created for the respective purposes named in this act, and shall be used only as the legislative assembly of said Territory may direct, and only for the use of the institutions or purposes for which the respective grants of lands are made: Provided, That such legislative assembly may provide for leasing all or any part of the lands granted in this act on the same terms and under the same limitations prescribed above as to the lands that may be leased only, but all leases made under the provisions of this act shall be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and all investments made or securities purchased with the proceeds of sales or leases of land provided for by this act shall be subject to like approval by the Secretary of the Interior. SEC. 11. That there is hereby appropriated from the unexpended funds in the Treasury of the United States ten thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, for the purpose of paying the expenses of the selection and segregation of said respective bodies of land, including such compensation to said commission as the Secretary of the Interior may deem proper. SEC. 12. That all acts and parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act, whether passed by the legislative assembly of said Territory or by Congress, are hereby repealed. Approved June 21, 1898. RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR MAKING LAND SELECTIONS IN THE TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO, UNDER THE ACT OF JUNE 21, 1898. Commissioner Hermann to registers and receivers, United States land offices, New Mexico, July 20, 1898. The following rules and regulations are prescribed for making selections of land in the Territory of New Mexico, under the provisions of the act of Congress, approved June 21, 1898 (Public No. 150), entitled "An act to make certain grants of land to the Territory of New Mexico, and for other purposes." Section 1 of the act provides: That sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township of the Territory of New Mexico, and where such sections, or any parts thereof, are mineral or have been sold or otherwise disposed of by or under the authority of any act of Congress, other non-mineral lands equivalent thereto, in legal subdivisions of not less than one-quarter section, and as contiguous as may be to the section in lieu of which the same is taken, are hereby granted to said Territory for the support of common schools, such indemnity lands to be selected within said Territory in such manner as is hereinafter provided: Provided, That the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections embraced in permanent reservations for national purposes shall not at any time be subject to the grants of this act, nor shall any lands embraced in Indian, military, or other reservations of any character be subject to the grants of this act; but such reservations shall be subject to the indemnity provisions of this act." 1. Under the provisions of said section, where either of the sections 16 or 36, or any part thereof, are mineral, or have been sold or otherwise disposed of in the manner indicated, the Territory will be entitled to select an equal quantity of land in lieu thereof. The selections must be made of surveyed agricultural, non-mineral lands, in legal subdivisions of not less than one quarter section, and as contiguous as may be to the section in lieu of which the same is taken, according to the approved township plats on file at the time. 2. The selections are to be made by the governor of the Territory of New Mexico, the surveyor-general, and the solicitor-general of said Territo y, acting as a commission, but the actual location of the land may be made by an agent of said commission under the direction of the secretary, evidence of whose right so to act must be filed in the local offices and in this office. 3. No selection is admissible of lands to which a valid c'aim has attached, nor of any land which is, or may be, reserved from sale by any law of Congress or proclamation of the President of the United States, nor of land which is reserved or withdrawn from market for any purpose, nor of mineral land. The character of the selected lands will be determined under the rules existing as to agricultural land entries. In all cases the selected tracts must be covered by non-mineral affidavits made by the duly appointed locating agent, or by an agent appointed by the locating agent for that purpose, and if by the latter, evidence of his appointment should accompany the affidavits. A non-mineral affidavit can be sworn to only on personal knowledge, and can not be made on information and belief. 4. In all indemnity selection lists the selected tracts on the one side must be connected with specific bases of exactly the same quantity on the other side. Respecting the method of so balancing the selections, you are referred to the circular letter from this Office of July 29, 1887, page 124, of the Commissioner's annual report for 1887, which was sanctioned by the Department in the case of Melvin et al. v. California (6 L. D., 702). 5. In presenting selections of indemnity lands, based on sections 16 and 36 or portions thereof, found upon survey to be in the occupancy and covered by the improvements of an actual settler under the public-land laws, whose settlement was made before the survey of the land in the field, the Territory may proceed in one of two ways to have its rights defined: First. By proving such occupation at the date of survey, and up to the time of the selection, by the testimony of at least two respectable disinterested witnesses. In such instances the qualifications of the alleged settler under the public-land laws must be shown and also the occupancy and improvements as to each subdivision used as the basis of selection. Second. By relying on the proofs of settlers under the public-land laws claiming by virtue of settlement prior to survey, after entry by them. The validity of such basis of selection would depend upon the establishment of the fact of such settle. ment before this Department. 6. In making selections founded on deficiencies in the school sections the bases should be carefully described in the lists of selections by subdivisions, section, township, and range, or by fractional townships where the school sections are entirely wanting. 7. A determination by the Secretary of the Interior, or a decision by his office. or by the local officers, which has become final under the rules of practice, that a portion of the sma lest egal subdivision in a section numbered 16 or 36 is mineral land, will place all of said entire subdivision in the class of bases that may be used in selections of land as indemnity. 8. All lands in said sections 16 or 36 returned as nonmineral must be presumed to be school lands, for the purposes of the act, until the presumpt on is overcome in the manner hereinafter indicated; and likewise the return of sections 16 and 36 by the surveyor-general as mineral land is sufficient evidence of its mineral character to entitle the Territory to select indemnity therefor in all cases where said return is not overcome by competent evidence to the contrary. 9. In the absence of a decision by this Department that land in a school section is either mineral or nonmineral in character the Territory may proceed as follows: (a) By proceeding to prove land which has been returned as mineral to be in fact nonmineral, in the manner prescribed in mining circular of December 15, 1897 (25 L. D.. 592). (b) By relying upon the record for indemnity where lands have been entered as mineral. Where the authorities have information that the mineral character of tracts in sections 16 and 36 is shown by evidence in this Office, a list thereof may be sent here through the proper district office, to determine whether they may be used as bases for selections. 10. The remaining grants made by the act are as follows, and the rules prescribed in numbered paragraphs 3 are also applicable to the selection of these: (a) By section 2 there are granted for the purpose of erecting public buildings at the capital, for legislative, executive, and judicial purposes, 50 sections (32,000 acres). (b) Section 3 grants to the Territory the lands reserved for the establishment of a university in New Mexico under section 6 of the act of July 22, 1854 (10 Stats.. 308), viz, two townships (46,080 acres), and provides that any portion thereof remaining unselected may now be selected. In addition to the foregoing there are granted for the use of said university 65,000 acres of nonmineral, unappropriated and unoccupied public land, and all the saline lands in said Territory: and 100.000 acres of nonmineral, unappropriated, and unoccupied lands for the use of an agricultural college. (c) In lieu of the grant for internal improvements under section 8. of the act of September 4, 1841 (5 Stats., 455), and also in lieu of any claim for swamp and overflowed lands, section 6 of the act provides for a grant of the following amounts of nonmineral and unappropriated land for the purposes specified, viz: 11. The saline lands granted by section 3 of the act must be selected in the same manner as agricultural lands, and all selections of saline lands must be accompanied with satisfactory evidence that lands so selected are in fact saline in character, the bare return by the surveyor-general of land as saline will not be considered as conclusive in classifying them as saline, the returns of the deputy surveyors as to the character of the land surveyed having been found in many instances to be indefinite or erroneous. 12. Section 10 of said act provides: First. For the leasing of the lands reserved for university purposes, including saline lands, and sections 16 and 36 reserved for school purposes." Second. For the sale of "the remainder of the lands granted by this act except those lands which may be leased only as above provided." or for their leasing when provided for by the legislative assembly of the Territory. Third. That all leases made under the provisions of this act shall be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and all investments made or securities purchased with the proceeds of sales or leases of lands provided for by this act shall be subject to like approval by the Secretary." Under the provisions of this section all leases of lands whether of lands reserved for university purposes, including all saline lands and sections 16 and 36 reserved for school purposes: or of the remainder of the lands granted by this act, except those lands which may be leased only as above provided," when the leasing of such remaining lands may have been provided for by the legislative assembly of the Territory, and all investiments made or securities purchased with the proceeds of sales or leases of such lands must be submitted to the Secretary of the Interior for his approval. |