Filcher v. United States

(after stating the facts as above). The Act of February 26, 1895 (28 Stat. 683), created a special tribunal to examine and classify as mineral or nonmineral the odd-numbered sections of the land grant to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in Montana and Idaho, the surveyed lands to be described by legal subdivisions, the unsurveyed lands to be designated by “such natural or artificial boundaries to identify them, as the commissioners may determine’,’ (section 3) and further provided that no patent should issue to the railroad company until after such examination and classification. Under…