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ALASKA. 
made by citizens of the United States, or persons who have declared their 
intention to become citizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and 
used for agricultural purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable 
mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly 
agricultural lands, the settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right 
of pre-emption thereto, and shall be entitled to purchase the same at the price 
of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and in quantity not to exceed one 
hundred and sixty acres; or they may avail themselves of the provisions of 
chapter five of this title, relating to “Homesteads.” 
Sec. 2342. Upon the survey of the lands described in the preceding section, 
the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart such portions of the 
same as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall thereafter be subject to 
pre-emption and sale as other public lands, and be subject to all the laws and 
regulations applicable to the same. 
Sec. 2343. The President is authorized to establish additional land-districts, 
and to appoint the necessary officers under existing laws, wherever he may deem 
the same necessary for the public convenience in executing the provisions or 
this chapter. 
Sec. 2344. Nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to impair, in 
any way, rights or interests in mining property acquired under existing laws; 
nor to affect the provisions of the act entitled “An act granting to A. Sutro the 
right of way and other privileges to aid in the construction of a draining and 
exploring tunnel to the Comstock lode, in the State of Nevada,” approved July 
twenty-five, eighteen hundred and sixty-six. 
Sec. 2345. The provisions of the preceding sections of this chapter shall not 
apply to the mineral lands situated in the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Minnesota, which are declared free and open to exploration and purchase, 
according to legal subdivisions, in like manner as before the tenth day of May, 
eighteen hundred and seventy-two. And any bona fide entries of such lands 
within the States named since the tenth of May, eighteen hundred and seventy- 
two, may be patented without reference to any of the foregoing provisions of 
this chapter. Such lands shall be offered for public sale in the same manner, at 
the same minimum price, and under the same rights of pre-emption as other 
public lands. 
Sec. 2346. No act passed at the first session of the thirty-eighth Congress, 
granting lands to States or corporations to aid in the construction of roads or 
for other purposes, or to extend the time of grants made prior to the thirtieth 
day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, shall be so construed as to 
embrace mineral lands, which in all cases are reserved exclusively to the United 
States, unless otherwise specially provided in the act or acts making the grant. 
