Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/64

62 report of the commission is being prepared, and also a special and final memoir on the insects of the cotton-plant, the publication of which I commend to Congress.

The Hot Springs Reservation is located in Garland County, Arkansas. In October, 1875, the United States Supreme Court decided that the title to that portion of the lands which had been in dispute for more than fifty years vested in the United States. A receiver was appointed by the court, and the rentals collected by him and covered into the Treasury amounted to $33,744.78.

Under the act of March 3, 1877, the office of receiver was abolished, and a commission was appointed to lay out the lands of the reservation into convenient squares, blocks, lots, avenues, streets, and alleys; designate the tract, including the Hot Springs Mountain, which was to be reserved from sale; show by metes and bounds, on a properly prepared map, the parcels or tracts of land claimed by reason of improvement or occupation; hear any and all proof offered by claimants and occupants and the United States in respect to said lands and improvements; and to finally determine the right of each claimant or occupant to purchase the same, or any portion thereof, at the appraised value fixed by said commissioners.

The commissioners were also authorized to condemn and remove all buildings or obstructions upon the reservation when necessary, fix the value of the property condemned, issue certificates therefor, and at the conclusion of their labors to make a full report of their proceedings to the Secretary of the Interior.

On the 30th of March, 1877, the President appointed as members of the commission, A. H. Cragin, of New Hampshire; John Coburn, of Indiana; and M. L. Stearns, of Florida. They were reappointed December 16, 1878, for one year, and submitted their final report December 11, 1879.

The following papers, documents, records, maps, and plats accompanied the report, and are now on file in this department:

1st. All of the petitions filed with the commission for the right to purchase land, and for condemned buildings, with the testimony offered by the claimants in the several claims, and the findings of the commission.

2d. A record of all the proceedings of the commission, which includes all the orders and findings made by the commission in the several claims.

3d. A docket of all the petitions or claims filed, furnishing a reference to the orders of the commission in each claim.

4th. A schedule, as provided by law, showing the name of each claimant, and of each lot or parcel of land, the appraised value thereof, and numbers to correspond with such claim upon the map.

5th. Appraisement books, containing the valuation of each lot or