delivered the opinion of the .Court.
This is a suit in equity brought by the United States, as plaintiff, against,the appellants, as defendants, by which a decree was sought adjudging the plaintiff to be the owner of a tract of land in the Parish of Caddo, Louisiana, enjoining all interference therewith, and requiring the defendants- to account for the value of oil- and gas extracted by them therefrom. ,-
Thе United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, upon the report of a master, fóund for the plaintiff, and entered a. decree in accordance with the prayer of the bill ordering a restoration oí possession and awarding damages against some of the defendants, including Stockley, for about $62,000. ;
The case cоmes to this Court by appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the decree of the District Court.
The defendants denied plaintiff’s title and alleged that the land was the property of the defendant Stockley by virtue of his compliance with the homestead laws -of the United States.
The conceded faсts are that in 1897 Stockley took possession of the land and on November 13, 1905, made a preliminary entry thereof as a homestead. He complied with the provisions of the Homestead laws, submitted final proof, including the required non-mineral affidavit, paid the commissions and fees then due, and on January 16, 1909, obtained the receiver’s receipt therefor. Prior to that time, viz, on December 15, 19Q8, a large body of ■public lands, embracing within its boundaries the land in question, was' withdrawn by an order of the President of the United States from all forms of appropriation. The withdrawal order was expressly made “ subject to existing valid claims.” The receiver’s receipt, omitting unnecessary matter, -is in the following words:
*537 “ Received of Thomas J. Stockley . . . the sum of Three Dollars and One Cents, in connection with Hd. Final, Serial0188, for: [landsdescribed] 71.25acres. . .”
On March 17, 1910, Stockley leased the property in question to the defendant the Gulf Refining Company, which company subsequently drilled wells and developed oil. The rights of the other defendants are wholly dependent upon the title asserted on behalf of Stockley.
On July 16,1910, after the report of a special agent confirming Stock-ley’s claim of residence upon and cultivation and improvement of the lands, the Commissioner of the General Land Office ordered the case “ clear-listed and closed as to the Field Service Division.” Subsequently, and more than three years after the issuance of the receiver’s receipt, viz., on February 27, 1912, a contest was ordered by the Commissioner of the General Land Office before the local register and .receiver upon the charge that the land was mineral in character, being chiefly valuable for oil and gas, and that when Stockley made his final proof he knew or, as an ordinarily prudent man, should have known this fact. After a hearing, the register and receiver decided in favor of Stockley, but the Commissioner of the General Land Office reversed the decision and ordered the entry canceled. The Secretary of the Interior affirmed the Commissioner with a modification allowing Stockley to obtain a patent for the surface only, under the provisions of the Act of July 17, 1914, c. 142,' 38 Stat. 509.
The defendants contended that the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the. Secretary of the Interior were without authority to entertain this contest becаuse prior thereto full equitable title had vested in Stockley and he had become entitled to a patent* by virtue of the provisions of § 7 of the Act .of March 3, 1891, c. 561, 26 Stat. 1095, 1099. That section, so far as necessary to be stated, provides: .
*538 “ That after the lapse of two years from the date of the issuance of the receiver’s receipt upon the final entry of any tract of land under the homestead, timber-culture, désert-land, or pre-emption laws, or under this act, and when there shall be no pending contest or protest against the validity of such entry, the entryman shall be entitled to a patent conveying the land by him entered, and the same shall be issued to him; but this proviso shall not be construed to require the delay of two years from thé date of said entry before the issuing of a'patent therefor.”
The court below rejected deféndants’ contention, holding that the receipt issued to Stockley was not. a “ receiver’s receipt upon the final entry ” for the reason that, in the view of. that court, as final entry could not become effective until the issuance of the certificate of the register. In other words, it was the opinion of the lower court that in order to constitute a final entry within the meaning of the statute above quoted, there must be an adjudication upon the proofs and the issuance of a final certificаte, evidencing an approval thereof. '
We think the language of the statute does not justify this conclusion. It must be assumed that Congress was familiar with the operations and practice of the Land Department and knew ihe difference between a receiver’s receipt and a register’s certificate. These papers serve different purposes. One, as its name imports, acknowledges the receipt of the money paid. The other certifies to the payment and declares that the claimant on presentation of the certificate to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, shall be entitled to a patent.
The evidence shows that prior to the passage of the statute, and thereafter until 1908, the practice was to issue receipt and certificate simultaneously upon the submission arid acceptance of the final proof and payment of the fees and commissions. In 1908 this practice was changed, so that the receiрt was issued upon the submis *539 sion'of the final proof and making of payment, while the certificate was issued upon approval of the proof and this might' be at any time after the issuance of the receipt. The receiver and register act independently, the former alone being authorized to issue the receipt and the latter to sign the certificate. The receipt issued to Stockley was after submission of his proof and payment of all that he was required to pay under the law. No certificate was ever issued by the register.
It is contended’by the Government that the receiver’s receipt named in the statute should be restricted to a receiрt issued simultaneously with the register’s certificate after approval of final proofs, and that, after the change of 1908 in the practice of the Department, a receipt issued before such approval does not come within the meaning of the statute. Such a receipt, it is contended, obtains no validity as a “ receiver’s receipt upon the final entry ” until after the proof has in fact been examined and approved.
We cannot accept this conception of the law. A change in the practice of the Land Department manifestly could not have the effect of altering the meaning of an act of Congrеss. What the act meant upon its passage, it con-' tinued to mean thereafter. The plain provision is that the period of limitation shall begin to run from the date of the “issuance of the receiver’s receipt upon the final entry.” There is no ambiguity in this language and, therefore, no room for construction. There is nothing to construe. The sole inquiry is whether the receipt issued to Stockley falls within the words of the statute. In
Chotard
v.
Pope,
That Stockley’s acts constituted final entry is borne out by rulings of the Land Department. Thus in Gilbert v. Spearing, 4 L. D. 463, 466, Secretary Lamar said:
. “ When the homestead application, affidavit and legal fees are properly placed in the hands of thе local laikl officers, and the land applied for is properly subject to entry, from that moment the right of entry is complete and in contemplation of law the land is entered.”
See also Iddings v. Burns, 8 L. D. 224, 226.
We are not at liberty to. add to or take' from the language of the statute. When Congress has plainly described the instrument from whose date the statute bеgins to rün as the “receipt upon the final.entry,” there is no warrant for construing it to mean only a receipt issued simultaneously with the certificate or one issued after the adjudication on the final proof,.which might be— and in this instance was—postponed indefinitely. It was to avoid just such delays for an.' unreasonable length' of time—that is, for mоre than two years — that the statute was enacted. Lane v. Hoglund, supra, and Land Depart *541 ment decisions cited. The purpose and effect of the statute are clearly and accurately stated by the Commissioner of the General Land Office in Instructions of June 4, 1914, 43 L. D. 322, 323, in the course of which it is said:
“ There is no doubt that Congress chose the date of the receiver’s reсeipt rather than of the certificate of the register as controlling, for the reason that payment by the claimant marks the end of compliance by him with the requirements of law. It would be manifestly unjust to make the right to a patent dependent upon the administrative action of the register, subjecting it to such delays as are incidеnt to the. conduct of public business and over which the .claimant has no control. Payment, of which the receiver’s receipt is but evidence, is, therefore, the material circumstance that starts the running of the statute, inasmuch as a claimant is and always has been entitled to a receipt when payment is made.”
It is urged, howevеr, that in any event the receiver exceeded his authority in issuing the receipt, since the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, on December 15, 1908, had instructed the register and receiver, among other things, as follows:
“Applications, selections, entries, and proofs based upon selections, settlements', or rights initiated prior to the date of withdrawal may be received by you and allowed to proceed under the rules up to and including the submission of final proofs. You must not, however, in such cases receive the purchase money or issue final‘certificates of entry, but must suspend the entries and proofs pending investigation as to the validity of the claims with rеgard to the character of the land and compliance with tiie law in other respects.” ;
These instructions were issued, as shown upon their face, in view of the Presidential withdrawal order of the same date. We suggest, without deciding, that, inasmuch as the withdrawal order was expressly made subject to
*542
existing valid claims, and Stockley’s clаim was obviously existing and-valid, this instruction of the Commissioner was itself without authority, since, as applied to Stockley, it was in conflict with the withdrawal'order. This has nothing to do with the question as to whether the lands were, in fact, mineral in character, which is another and different matter dealt with later. However, Stockléy, as already shown, did, in fact, make finаl entry and the receiver did, in fact, issue and deliver his receipt thereon The case, therefore, falls' within the terms of the statute and must be governed by it, unless the receipt .be' held for naught on the ground that it was issued contrary to the Commissioner’s instructions. But the very object of the statute was to preclude inquiry upon that or any other'matter, except as provided by the statute, after the expiration of two years from the date of the receiver’s receipt. In
United States
v.
Winona & St. Peter R. R. Co.,
In
United States
v.
Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co.,
“ It is said that the instrument was void and hence was no patent.. But the statute presupposes an instrument that might be declared void. When it refers to ‘ any patent heretofore issued,’ it describes the purport and source of the document, not its legal effect. If the act were confined to valid patents it*would be almost or quite without use.”
To hold that the receipt here under consideration falls outside the terms of the statute would be to defeat the purpose of the statute and perpetuate the mischief which it sought to destroy. Prior to the decision in the case of Jacob A, Harris, 42 L. D. 611, 614 (quoted with approval in Lane v. Hoglund, supra), it had been held that the statute did not affect the conduct or action of the Land Department in taking up and disposing of final proof of entrymen-аfter the lapse of the two-year period (In re Traganza, 40 L. D. 300), but this view was sharply challenged and overruled in the Harris Case, where it was said:
“ Passed, primarily, to rectify a past and to prevent future abuses of the departmental power to sfispend entries, the proviso is robbed of its essential purpose and practically repealed by the decision in the Traganza case.”
The effective character of the receiver’s receipt being established, the question, after the lapse of the two-year period, as to whether the land was mineral bearing, was no longer open. Inquiry upon that ground was then foreclosed, along with all others. Payne v. Newton, supra.
The bar of the statute likewise prеvails, notwithstanding the executive withdrawal of December 15, 1908. The validity of that order is, of course, settled by the decision
*544
in
United States
v.
Midwest Oil Co.,
The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the bill of complaint.