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Show 102 REPORT OF TEE COMMIXF1IONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Since the ratification by the Choctaws and Chickasaws of the agree-ment, leases have been made of tracts of 960 acres each for the purpose of mining coal in said nations, and have been approved as follows: I. Thirty leases with the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gnlf Railroad Company, the snccessor of the Choctaw Coal aud Railway Company, submitted with office report of March 1, 1899, and approved by the Secretary on March 1,1899. 2. Eight leases with John F. McMurray, submitted with office report of April 25,1899, and approved by the Secretary on April 27,1899. 3. Three leases to Messrs. D. Edwards & Sons, submitted with office report of July 28, 1899, and approved by the Department August 22, 1899. A11 leases for mineral purposes in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations are required to be for a term of thirty years. A memorandum of the lease is made opposite each tract in the tract books of this ofice; and the leases themselves, made out in quadrnplicate, are sent to the various parties entitled thereto, viz, one to the Auditor of the Tree5 ury for the Interior Department, another to the lessee, and the other two to the inspector for the Indian Territory--one to be retained in the office of the Indian agent for the Union Agency for his guidance in the collection of royalties to be paid by the lessees, and the other to be transmitted to the mining trustees of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. Contests of Leases.-Besides the leases above named twenty-eight leases have been made by the trustees to the Sans Bois Coal Company. These leases have not been approved, on account of a contest between said company and the Kansas and Indian Territory Coal Mining Com-pany, represented by Mr. W. S. Nelson, as to certain tracts embraced within some of said leases. The regulations, by a proviso to paragraph 9, make provision for the adjudication of controversies as follows : That shonld there srise a oontrovemy between two or more such corpora~ionath e respeotive rights of saoh shdl be determined after an investigetion by the inspeetor looated in the Indian Territory, enbjeot to appeal to the Commissioner of Indian Affsirs, and from him to the Searetary of the Interior. After much delay, the taking of testimony, and very carefd consid-eration, Inspector Wright concluded that the Eansas and Indian Ter-ritory Coal Mining Company had an inferior right to that of the Sans Bois Company, the latter company being shown by the evidence to have been operating under a national contract within the tracts claimed by the other company; that is, the contract entered into with the San Bois company, or its assignors, ma% made by the national agents of.the Ohoctaw and Chickasaw nations (such contracts being specifically affirmed and ratified by the agreement where the parties in good faith had been operating the lands covered by them), while the Kansas md Indian Territory OoaJ Mining Company had been operating within said |