This agreement with the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes not having been ratified by Congress, an agreement was concluded late in the following year[653] by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs with both the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes, whereby they jointly ceded the tract assigned them by the treaty of 1867, as well as all other lands to which they had any claim in Indian Territory, in consideration of which the United States agreed to set apart other lands in that Territory for their future home. Like its predecessor, this agreement also failed of ratification by Congress, and the Indians affected by it still occupy the tract set apart by Executive order of 1869. In the light of these facts it appears that although the United States made several attempts, without the knowledge or concurrence of the Cherokees, to appropriate portions of the latter's domain to the use of other tribes, yet as a matter of fact these tribes never availed or attempted to avail themselves of the benefits thus sought to be secured to them, and the Cherokees were not deprived at any time of an opportunity to sell any portion of their surplus domain for the location of other friendly tribes. By a clause contained in the sundry civil appropriation act of July 31, 1876,[654] provision was made for defraying the expenses of the commission of appraisal contemplated by the act of 1872, and the Secretary of the Interior appointed[655] such a commission, consisting of Thomas V. Kennard, Enoch H. Topping, and Thomas E. Smith. Before the completion of the duties assigned them, Mr. Kennard resigned and William N. Wilkerson was appointed[656] to succeed him. The commission convened at Lawrence, Kansas, and proceeded thence to the Cherokee country, where they began the work of examination and appraisal. Their final report was submitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs under date of December 12, 1877. From this report it appears that the commissioners in fixing their valuations adopted as the standard of their appraisal one-half the actual value of the lands, on the theory that being for Indian occupancy and settlement only they were worth only about half as much as they would have been if open to entry and settlement by the white people. The entire tract, including the Pawnee reserve, contains 6,574,576.05 acres, and was appraised at an average valuation of 41-1/4 cents per acre. The average valuation placed upon the Pawnee reserve separately was 59 cents per acre, leaving the average of the remaining 6,344,562.01 acres 40.47 cents per acre. To this standard of appraisal the Cherokees strenuously objected as being most unfair and unjust to them, claiming that the same measure of value used by the United States in rating its lands of a similar character in the adjoining State of Kansas, and from which they were separated only by an imaginary line, should prevail in determining the price to be paid for the Cherokee lands.