the name of a person deceased without heirs, or of a fictitious person, cannot be deemed an innocent purchaser; for in such case the assignment would be forgery, against which it is the business of the purchaser or assignee to guard. As to the second question, it is clear that the Commissioner of Pensions has no jurisdiction to determine the question of innocent purchaser or bona fide assignee of military land warrants. Section 2414 of the Revised Statutes, and other sections relative to the location of such warrants, undoubtedly confide that question to the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. It follows, therefore, that caveats filed against, and cancellations of warrants by the Commissioner of Pensions in cases in which your office determines that the warrants are in the hands of innocent purchasers, are of no force or effect. Concerning the third question, I deem it unnecessary to give instruc tions. The rules laid down by the Department in the decisions aforesaid are sufficient to guide your office both in the matter of suspended locations and the delivery of patents. Moreover, the specific rules laid down by my predecessor February 28, 1881 (Copp for April, 1881, p. 10), in view of the decisions of the supreme court of the United States in the case of the United States Ex rel. Thomas McBride v. The Secretary, October term, 1880, are deemed sufficient to cover all cases of duly executed patents now withheld in your office for any cause. I may add that the delay in replying to the reports of December 8, 1880, and January 29, 1881, is due to the fact that time was allowed the Commissioner of Pensions in which to reply to the argument therein. I have this day forwarded a copy of this letter to the Commissioner of Pensions and instructed him to return to the files of your office at as early a day as practicable all military land warrants heretofore withdrawn therefrom by his office; that if hereafter it becomes necessary in the ordinary transaction of the business of his office to examine military land warrants that are in the files of your office, he will require the examination to be made by his subordinates in your office. VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT, OHIO. The act of May 27, 1880, has no relation to the act of March 3, 1855, and does not cure I am in receipt of your letter of the 27th ultimo, and have to inform you in reply that the act of Congress, approved May 27, 1880, entitled "An act to construe and define 'An act to cede to the State of Ohio the unsold lands in the Virginia military district in said State,' approved February 18, 1871, and for other purposes," has no relation whatever to the act of Congress of March 3, 1855, to which you refer. The said law of 1880 declares that the act of 1871, ceding to the State of Ohio the lands remaining "unsurveyed and unsold" in the said military district, had no reference whatever to such lands as had been entered and surveyed therein founded on continental line warrants, but the true intent and meaning of said cession was to grant to said State only such lands as had not been appropriated and were not included in any entry or survey within said district and founded on said warrants. It declares valid all legal surveys returned to the "land office" on or before March 3, 1857, on entries made on or before January 1, 1852, and founded on the above class of warrants, but gives no authority to carry the same into patent. By the words "land office" it is understood that the local office at Chillicothe, Ohio, otherwise designated as the "office of the principal surveyor of said district," is intended in contradistinction to the term "General Land Office." The said act also provides in the third section thereof-and therein is contained all that relates to the issue of patents-"That the officers and soldiers of the Virginia line on continental establishment, their heirs or assigns, entitled to bounty lands which have on or before January 1, 1852, been entered within the tract reserved by Virginia, between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers, for satisfying the legal bounties to her officers and soldiers upon continental establishment, shall be allowed three years from and after the passage of this act to make and return their surveys for record to the office of the principal surveyor of said district, and may file the plats and certificates, warrants, or certified copies of warrants at the General Land Office, and receive patents for the same." In other words, that patents shall only be issued in those cases where entries have been duly made, but the same not surveyed, and where such entries have been carried into survey within three years from and after May 27, 1880, and the said survey warrant, or certified copy of warrant, filed in this office. The said act of 1880 is not to affect or interfere with the title to any lands sold for a valuable consideration by the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College under the said act of February 18, 1871. From the above you will perceive that the law of May 27, 1880, does not cure, amend, or render valid any error or defect committed under the act of March 3, 1855. ON REVIEW-ISSUE OF PATENT REFUSED. Commissioner McFarland to Jeremiah Hall, April 4, 1882. Referring to your several letters of November 1 and December 21, 1881, and March 9, and two of March 20, 1882, and all in relation to the proper legal construction of the act of Congress of May 27, 1880, as affecting the issue of patents for lands in the Virginia military district, Ohio, I have to advise you that, after full and careful examination of the various arguments, suggestions, and statements made in said communications, I am still of the opinion as set forth in full in my letter to you of the 17th October last, viz, that said law only authorizes the issue of patents for lands in said district in cases where the entries were made prior to January 1, 1852, and the same had not been surveyed before the passage of the said act, for which purpose of survey three years from and after such period were allowed therefor, and for the return of the survey to the surveyor's office, and therefrom, and when the plats and certificates, warrants, or certified copies of warrants are filed in this office, the parties entitled might receive the patents for the same. The third section of the said act, the substance of which is above set forth, contains all that is stated in or can fairly and justly be implied from any part of the said law, as authorizing the issue of patents. I must, therefore, decline to comply with your request in the case of survey No. 3,487, for 400 acres, founded on Virginia military land warrant No. 3615, issued to William Dangerfield, as desired by your letters of December 21, 1881, and 20th ultimo, and also in the case of certified copy of survey No. 12,017, for 200 acres, founded on warrant No. 6508, and made in the name of Archibald' Gordon, as set forth in your communications of the 9th and 20th ultimo. MILITARY BOUNTY LAND WARRANTS. JEREMIAH HALL. History of the legislation relating to the Virginia military land district in Ohio, and proceedings under the same. Construction of the several acts, etc. There is no authority of law under which a patent can issue in the case presented. Commissioner McFarland to Jeremiah Hall, May 9, 1882. On May 12, 1880, you filed in this office an application for the issue of a patent on survey No. 12096, for 150 acres of land in the Virginia military district in Ohio; you also transmitted a certified copy of Virginia military warrant No. 584, for 200 acres, issued in the name of Aquilla Norval, a sergeant in the continental line, and also an uncertified paper purporting to be a duplicate of survey No. 12096, made in part satisfaction of said warrant. On October 1, 1880, you filed proof of publication of notice of the loss of the original warrant and of the original survey. The copy of survey is defective and is not conclusive evidence that any survey was made as alleged. But the defect is one that may be cured by the production of the proper evidence of the existence of the survey. As it is desirable to reach the ultimate merits of the application made, it is deemed unnecessary to decide what is such proper evidence. From the papers before me, it would appear that the survey was made of the tract described therein of December 28, 1822, and recorded in the surveyor's office January 27, 1823. I assume for the purposes of this decision that the survey was made and recorded as alleged. Attached to the copy of survey is a certificate from E. P. Kendrick, surveyor of the military district, dated December 27, 1875, stating that warrant No. 584, on which survey No. 12096, for 150 acres, was made, had not been satisfied at that date. The act of Congress of May 23, 1804 (2 Stat., 274), provided that parties entitled to bounty lands in the reserved territory should complete their locations within three years from the date of the act, and return their surveys and file the original warrants or certified copies thereof in the Department of War within five years from the date of the act. The parties should then be entitled to receive patents for the lands so located. If the surveys were not returned to the Secretary of War within the time and times prescribed by the act, the land should be released from any claims for bounty lands and should thereafter be disposed of as public lands of the United States. The effect of this act was to require a completed location to be made within three years and a survey and return thereof, together with the original or certified copy of the warrant on which they were founded, to the Department of War within five years from the passage of the act. These acts were conditions precedent to the requirement of the right to receive patents. It is unnecessary to cite authorities to show that conditions precedent must be strictly performed. By a positive provision of this act all lands not thus effectually appropriated within the prescribed times were thereafter to become released from all claims for bounty lands by virtue of any location and survey not thus completed and returned, and were to become the property of the United States to be disposed of as other public lands free from any trust in favor of the soldiers of Virginia on continental establishment (Fussel v. Hughes, U. S. circuit court, northern district of Ohio, September, 1881). The survey required was not the mere circumstance that a chain had followed a compass around a particular piece of land. (Jackson v. Clark, 1 Pet., 789.) It must have been returned, together with the warrant, in the manner, within the time, and to the officer designated. At the date of this act, the Secretary of War was charged with executive duties appertaining to grants of land for military services. These duties were subsequently transferred to and devolved upon the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The returns that, by the act of 1804, were to be made to the Secretary of War then became returnable to the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The provisions of the act of 1804 were continued by subsequent enactments until finally, by the act of March 3, 1855 (10 Stat., 701), a further time of two years was allowed to make the return of surveys and war rants to the General Land Office. The effect of the act was to extend to March 3, 1857, the limitation of the time in which surveys and warrants could be returned to the proper office and patents be issued thereon. All lands not then and thus effectively appropriated reverted to the public domain from and after said March 3, 1857, and no patents could issue on surveys based on military warrants and returned to the General Land Office after that date. The provisions of the act of 1804 were therefore extended to March 3, 1857, when all rights thereunder finally ceased and terminated and the unappropriated lands became public lands of the United States. On February 18, 1871 (16 Stat., 416), the lands remaining unsurveyed and unsold in the Virginia military district in Ohio were ceded to the State of Ohio, reserving certain pre-emption rights to actual settlers. On May 27, 1880 (21 Stat., 105), Congress passed an act construing the act of 1871, as ceding to the State of Ohio only such lands as were unappropriated and not included in any survey or entry founded on military warrants upon continental establishment. The second section of this act declared valid all legal surveys returned to the land office on or before March 3, 1857, on entries made on or before January 1, 1852, founded on unsatisfied Virginia continental warrants. The third sec. tion provided that parties entitled to bounty lands which had been entered within the Virginia military district in Ohio, on or before January 1, 1852, for satisfying legal bounties to Virginia soldiers on continental establishment, should be allowed three years to make and return their surveys for record to the office of the principal surveyor of said district and might file their plats and certificates, warrants or certified copies of warrants, at the General Land Office and receive patent for the same. The first section of this act limited the cession, to the State of Ohio, of the reverted lands to such as had not been surveyed or entered. The effect of this section was to leave the lands that had been surveyed or entered in the same position in which they remained after March 3, 1857, and prior to February 18, 1871; in other words not to disturb titles that had grown up under surveys and entries made many years before but which had never been consummated into patent. The reason for this is obvious. The method of acquiring the legal title to bounty lands under the act of 1804, and the several extensions thereof, was for the party in interest to make an entry, by virtue of the warrant, in the proper book of entries in the office of the principal surveyor of the military district. Then the party procured a survey to be made of the land so selected in satisfaction of the warrant, which survey was recorded in the surveyor's office. This original survey and the original or a certified copy of the warrant was to be then filed in the General Land Office, whereupon patent would issue. As soon as the lands were entered in the surveyor's office they became taxable under State laws without regard to the issue of patent, and the |