Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 4.djvu/249



records, evidence, and papers, in the possession of said board, relating to claims and titles to land, in said district; and it shall be the duty of said receiver and register, to examine and decide all claims and titles to land, in East Florida, not heretofore decided by the late board of commissioners, subject to the limitations, and in conformity with the provisions of the several acts of Congress providing for the adjustment of private land claims in Florida.

. And be it further enacted, That the several claimants to land in said district, whose claims have not been heretofore decided on or filed, before the late board of commissioners, be permitted to file their claims, and the evidence in support of them, with the register and receiver of said district, and evidence in support of those filed before said board, at any time before the first of November next, whose duty it shall be to report the same, with their decision thereon, and those already filed, to the Secretary of the Treasury, on or before the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, to be laid before Congress at the next session.

. And be it further enacted, That the receiver and register shall have power to appoint a clerk, and prescribe his duties; and the receiver and register shall each be entitled to receive the sum of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, to be paid quarterly out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, as a full compensation for the performance of their duties as receiver and register, and the additional duties required by this act, and shall not be allowed any other fees or commissions whatever; and the clerk appointed by them shall be allowed the sum of one thousand dollars, to be paid quarterly out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.

. And be it further enacted, That the keepers of public archives of East and West Florida shall furnish to the surveyor of public lands in Florida, without delay, a description of each claim to land, which shall have been confirmed, which shall specially designate the quantity, locality and connection of such claim; and where the confirmation may have been made on a grant or survey, a copy of the courses and distances contained in such grant or survey, and the date of the survey or grant; and it shall be the duty of the surveyor of public lands in Florida, to cause, under such instructions as he may receive from the Treasury Department, the said claims to be surveyed, and connected with the township lines of the public surveys, and to give to them their proper township and sectional numbers, agreeably to such descriptions; and he shall make separate plats and certificates of survey of the same, one of which shall be returned to the office of the register of the land office for the district in which the land may lie, and the other shall be delivered to the claimant. But it shall be the duty of the surveyor to withhold his certificate, if he shall have reason to believe that the lands claims are other lands than those intended to be confirmed; or if it shall appear that the survey, under which the land is claimed, has been made subsequent to the date of the survey under which the claim was confirmed.

. And be it further enacted, That, so soon as the said tracts of land shall have been thus surveyed, and the surveys thereof returned to the office of the proper register, it shall be the duty of the said register to issue certificates in favour of the claimants entitled thereto; and, if it shall appear, to the satisfaction of the commissioner of the general land office, that the certificates have been fairly obtained, and correspond with the transcripts transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and the plat returned by the surveyor, patents shall be granted, in like manner as is provided by law for the other public lands of the United States.

. And be it further enacted, That the surveyor of the public lands shall designate on the township plats the claims for which he shall have refused to issue his certificates of survey.