Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/165

Rh The procedure for selection and appropriation by the state provided for in this act amounted to the seizure of such lands as the agent of the state designated as swampy in character without so much as saying "by your leave" to the national authorities. It must be said, however, to the credit of this legislature that it did recognize the obligation, carried in the grant, of reclamation through drainage of the lands selected. There was a measure of justification also* for this summary procedure for the seizure of lands that might be considered swampy in character. The surveys in Oregon were being carried on without any note being made of swamp lands; and further, the courts, national as well as state, had decided in effect that the title of the state -to the swamp lands within the state became vested on the 12th day of March, i860, when the grant was extended by law of Congress to Oregon. And, moreover, the determination immediately of the prior right of the state to certain lands was one of considerable practical importance, as railroads with their grants of alternate sections along their lines were appropriating them. Settlers claiming under national law were occupying others out of which the state felt it was deprived of some revenue.

Not until 1874 did the legislature elect a mode of identification of the swamp lands satisfactory to the authorities of the national government. Then for the first time proper officers of the state "were instructed to furnish the Department of the Interior such evidence, and in such manner, of the swampy character of these lands as the said Department shall prescribe." Meanwhile the selection and sale of these lands had been in progress under the law of 1870. The procedure under this law, it will be remembered, ignored the national authorities. In selling the lands under the law of 1870 it was provided that a payment of 20 per cent of the price should accompany the application and the purchaser was to have ten years in which to reclaim by drainage.