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Show ~ REPORT OF THE .COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 133 I Peak, and tinally to the fifty-first mile corner on the old boundary I tine. i The .Yakima Indians filed a protest against the location of the new boundary line becnuse it eliminated 63,000 acres of land on the west and north of the boundary, then being demarlred, which they claimed as part of the reservation. The Office reported to the Department on Jnly 30 and August 16, 1906, that under the instructions i s~uedin conilection with contract No. 632, the surveys were made without ref-erence to the Claims of the Indians, and it was recommended that the surveyors be instructed to follow the boundary line of the reservation according to the wording of the treaty of June 9, 1855 (12 Stat. L., 951). This recommendation was approved by the Department Au-gust 24, 1906, and supplemental instructions were issued by the Com-missioner of the General Land Office directing that the line be run on the ridge from the headwaters of the south fork of the Atanum River, around the headwaters of the K l i ~ ~ tRaitv er by Spencer Point to Goat Rock, thence along the summit of the Cascade Mountains to Conical Hump, and thence by the blazed trees to Grayback Peak, this line following the treaty boundaries of the reservation as claimed by the Indians. The report of E. C. Barnard, of the Geological Sur-vey, of his examination of this part of the boundary line (see H. Doc. 621, 56th Cong., 1st sess.), gives this as the trne boundary of the reservation as originally intended. He considers the import.ant clause in the treaty to be that which makes the summit of the Cascade Mountains form a part of the western boundary. In a suit in equity now before the circuit court for the State of Washington, instituted by the United States of .America, complain-ant, against the Northern Pacific Railway Company and the Mer-cantile Trust Company, defendants, for the purpose of canceling certain patents erroneously issued to the Northern Pacific Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company within the Yakima Reservation, it was essential to the Government's success to fix some definite boundary, and the assistant attorney-general for the Department adopted the boundary recognized in the act of De-cember 21, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 595), which is substantially the line run by contract No. 632. It is hoped that the court will take judi-cial notice of the boundary as fixed by treaty. If it does not do so, when this snit has been finally determined the question mill have to be considered of the rights of the Indians to the lands lying between the straight-line boundary run under surveying contract No. 632 snd that along the summit of the mountains, for which the Indians contend. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, FRANCE.I SL EUPPC, omdssiol~er. The SECRETAROYF THE IFTERIOR. . , |