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Show 18 COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 36,000 acres were sold for lease at the sale in October for a bonus consideration aggregating $3,993,750. At the sale held June 14, 1921, approximately 25,918 acres were sold for lease for a bonus consideration aggregating $4,559,100. The tracts offered on the east side have always brought a much higher bonus than those offered on the west side until the June sale, when the average bonus for tracts on the west side was $504.67 per acre and for those on the , east side $43.29 per acre. This difference in bonus offered for leases 1 on the east and west sides of the reservation is probably due to the discovery of the Burhank pool mentioned above and the fact that all acreage limitations on the west side have been abolished. Prior to November 18, 1920, the regulations governing the leasing of Osage land for oil and gas mining purposes provided that no person, firm, partnership, loint-stock association, or co oration would be permitted to acquire any interest in Osage lan 7 for oil purposes by lease, assi ment, drilling contract, or otherwise in excess of 4,800 acres. %n November 18, 1920, this provision was modified and the acreage which any one person, firm,,partnership, etc., could acquire fixed at 20,000 acres on the east side. On the west side all acreage limitations were removed. B the act of March 3, 1921 (Pub. No. 360, 66th Cong. , the act of June 28, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 539), which reserves to t h e Osage Indians in Oklahoma the oil, gas, coal, or other minerals in Osage County, Okla., until 1931, was amended to reserve to the Osage Tribe the minerals until 1946. This act authorizes and directs the Secre-tary of the Interior with the Osage council to offer for lease for oil and gas purposes all of the remaining portion of the unleased Osage land prior to April 8, 1931, of which there is approximately 1,000,000 acres unleased for oil, offering the same annually at the rate of not less than one-tenth of the unleased area. This act also gives the State of Oklahoma authority to levy and collect a gross production tax on all oil produced in Osa e County. It also au-thorizes and directs the Secretary of the kterior to pay an ad-ditional 1 per cent of the amount received by the Osage Tribe as royalties from production of oil and gas to Osage County, Okla., for the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges therein. This extension of the mineral trust period has been urgently sought by the Osage Tribe for several years. There was an oil production during the year of 20,625,127.40 barrels and an income of $15,166,297.01 from royalties and bonuses 1 on oil and gas. PROBATE WORK IN EASTERN OKLAHOMA. There is no more imi io rtant functioning of the work of the.Com- 1 missioner of Indian A airs than that involved in the protection of the estates of minor Indians and in seeing that the property of decedents is conserved and descends to those who are justly entitled thereto. A corps of legal representatives, known as probate attorneys, are maintained in that part of Oklahoma which was formerly the Indish Territory to look after the probate matters affecting restricted allottees or their heirs. The eastern part of Oklahoma, formerly the Indian Territory, consists of 40 counties, and in this area the work of the probate attorneys is performed, owing to the large Indian |