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Show 38 REWET OF THE OO~ISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. and that lieu land8 susceptible of irrigation be allotted. He expresses the opinion that negotiations should be conducted with the Indians with a view to obtaining their consent to the sale and relinquishment of a portion of their reservation, particularly that lying north of the river. The whole subject of allotment and irrigation work on this reserva-tion, and the advisability of negotiating with the Indians for the sale of a portion of their reservation, was laid before the Department by this Office August 25, 1903. The opinion was expressed that the work of revising allotments could proceed; that the question of irrigation should not now be passed upon, and that early negotiations with the Indians would not be objectionable. Sioux Ceded Lands.-The Indians who received allotments within the Sioux ceded tract, South Dakota, under the Sioux act of March 2, 1889 (25 Stats., 888), have from time to time made relinquishments of the same. It has been the policy of the Department to encourage them to relinquish their allotments on the ceded lands and to remove to their respective reservations and take allotments there if found to be entitled thereto. For this reason none of these nonreservation allot-ments have as yet been submitted to the Department. When it shall have beeu ascertained that no other Indians within the Sioux ceded tract desire to relinquish their allotments, the uurelinqnished allot-ments will be submitted to the Department for approval and for the issuance of patents. Allotment work in the field among nonreservation Indians has beeu continued during the year by Special Allotting Agents William E. Casson and George A. Keepers, the former continuing the work of investigating, overhauling, and marking the corners of allotments pre-viously made in the States of California and Nevada, while the latter was engaged in makiug new allotments in the State of Washington. Redding and Susanville Distriats, California-During the month of December last Mr. Casson completed, so far as was deemed practicable at the t i e , the work of surveying and overhauling the allotments in the Susanville and Redding land districts in California, though much work which could be attended to largely by correspondence connected with changes in entries from allotments to homesteads, makiug settle-ment, settling conflicts, and adjusting disputes remained to be done. The total number of allotments and applications for allotments in these two districts was originally about 1,600. Of this number about 615 were in the Redding district, for the most of which trust patents have been issued, while those in the Susanviue district numbered about 1,035, for which but few trust patents have been issued. As a result of Mr. Caason's investigations, and in compliance with |