ACTIVITIES 65 



patentee and the requirements of settlement or payment to be 

 met by him. But in the case of coal lands a special provision 

 permits and inferentially requires the valuation of the lands 

 previous to their sale. 9 



The provisions of law involving a determination of the rela- 

 tion of the tract in question to the available water supplies are 

 of three distinct classes — those relating to entries upon arid 

 tracts by individuals, those relating to rights of way for irri- 

 gation, power or water supply purposes, and those relating to 

 grants of irrigable lands to the states. 



Under the desert land laws entries are permitted upon lands 

 not capable of producing crops without irrigation, while under 

 the enlarged homestead laws homestead entries of 320 acres 

 may be designated by the Secretary of the Interior upon lands 

 not susceptible of irrigation at a reasonable cost from any 

 known source of water supply; and additional privileges are 

 extended in certain cases to tracts which have not upon them 

 such a sufficient supply of water suitable for domestic pur- 

 poses as would make continuous residence upon them possible. 

 The act of December 29, 1916 (39 Stat. L., 862) authorizes 

 the Secretary of the Interior to designate as "stock-raising 

 lands," open to homestead entries of 640 acres, lands chiefly 

 valuable for grazing and for raising forage crops. 



Various acts provide for the grant of right-of-way permits 



over the public lands for canals, ditches and reservoirs for 



irrigation and for mining and milling purposes; for power 



development and transmission, and for municipal water sup- 



9 The law (sec. 2347 of the Revised Statutes) provides that "every 

 person above the age of twenty-one years, who is a citizen of the 

 United States, or who has declared his intention to become such, or 

 any association of persons severally qualified as above, shall, upon 

 application to the register of the proper land office, have the right to 

 enter, by legal subdivisions, any quantity of vacant coal lands of the 

 United States not otherwise appropriated or reserved by competent 

 authority not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres to such indi- 

 vidual person, or three hundred and twenty acres to such association 

 upon payment to the receiver of not less than ten dollars per acre 

 for such lands where the same shall be situated more than fifteen 

 miles from any completed railroad, and not less than twenty dollars 

 per acre for such lands as shall be within fifteen miles of such road." 



