OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIES. 39 Ewh allotment made may also involve any or all of the follow-ing questions: The sale of timber, a patent in fee, a hearing to de-termine the heirs of the deceased allottee, the opening of a bank account for the handling of the segregated trust funds, and the erec-tion of improvements upon the restricted land. As already said, the single item of the determination of heirs of deceased allottees has very greatly increased the work of the office since the passage of the act of June 25, 1910, and the need of increased office help for this class of work is pressing. The increased effort put forth to get each able-bodied Indian settled upon and started in farming his own allotment, or equipped for some other oc6upation in which he may become self-supporting, has largely increased the labor of handling individual Indian money, with a corresponding increase in the number of requests for authority to approve checks against Indian bank accounts. During the fiscal year 1912 a total of 222,187 communications was received in this o5ce; in the year 1913, as before noted, the number was 275,452-an increase of 23.9 per cent. In the fiscal year 1912, the total number of letters written and transmitted was 201,271, and in 1913 was 255,261-an increase of 26.4 per cent. COOPERATION WITH BUREAU. OF MINES. In February of this year the department placed upon the Bureau of Mines the duty of inspecting the physical operations under leases for mining purposes which covered Indian landa. Prior to that time complaints had been filed to the effect that much gas and oil was being wasted, particularly in the State of Oklahoma, by reason of the lack of scientific methods in driing. Representatives of the Bureau of Mines were detailed to Oklahoma and their effort6 to instruct operators and drillers as to the proper manner in which to drill so as to conserve the oil and gas during the drilling operations have met with gratw~ng success, have been appreciated by the operators, and have resulted in the saving of many thousands of dollars' worth of gas heretofore wasted. The enormity of the waste which has been going on year after year can best be understood from a report of the Bureau of Mines which indicates that there was a daily waste in a single oil field of about 300,000,000 cubic feet of gas, or about $75,000 a day. RIGHTS OF WAY. Railway constmction.-Railway construction on Indian lands during the past year has not been as active as it has in former ysars. The Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Co., and the @eat Northern Railway Co. have been authorized to construct lines across. |