MINING "CLAIMS" IN THE GRAND CANYON 



225 



caught by a palm warbler and found that it varied from 

 forty to sixty per minute. The bird observed spent at 

 least four hours at the task, and in that time must have 

 gathered almost ninety-five hundred insects. 



Mr. F. H. Moshcr observed a pair of yellow-throats 

 feeding upon the aphids on a gray birch. One of the birds 

 took eighty-nine of these tiny insects in a minute and 

 3500 in forty minutes. A chestnut-sided warbler was 

 observed to take twenty-two small gypsy moth cater- 

 pillars in fourteen minutes, another, twenty-eight brown- 

 tail caterpillars in twelve minutes, and a Nashville warbler 

 ate forty-two caterpillars in thirty minutes, together with 

 some other insects not identified. Many other observa- 

 tions could be listed, but the foregoing will give some idea 

 of the good work the warblers are ever doing. While it is 



tnie that the warblers and most birds do not like the large, 

 full-grown, hairy caterpillars, they destroy them while 

 small in great numbers, and such disagreeable species as 

 tent caterpillars and tussock moths are relished, even in 

 the adult stage, by cuckoos and orioles. If we should 

 list all of the insects that have been taken from the 

 stomachs of warblers, in the economic studies of the 

 biological survey, they would run nearly the entire 

 gamut of insect life. 



Fortunate it is that the country is at last awake to 

 the value of birds, that Federal laws for their protec- 

 tion have been enacted, and that we are learning to 

 appreciate them not only from the economic stand- 

 point, but also for the beauty and pleasure which they 

 bring into life. 



MINING "CLAIMS" IN THE GRAND CANYON 



BY H. H. CHAPMAN 



A GREAT victory for public ownership has recently 

 been won by court and departmental decisions, 

 which will have a far-reaching efifect in protecting 

 public rights in all of our National Forests and Parks, 

 and especially in the Grand Canyon. This is, in effect, that 

 fraudulent mining "claims" or locations can no longer 

 be occupied and held in defiance of authority and for pur- 

 poses other than those contemplated by the mining laws. 



There are many mining claims in the Grand Canyon, 

 locations made years ago, ostensibly for mineral, but in 

 reality covering portions of the canyon rim and trails in 

 such a way as to give the claimants control of land to 

 which the public shotdd have access, hence carrying with 

 them the chance to levy tribute on the tourist. 



Mining claims can be filed on any public land, includ- 

 ing National Forests, but not upon lands withdrawn as 

 National Monuments, or National Parks. A claimant 

 does not own the land until he "proves up" and gets a 

 "patent," but the claim, if valid, does give him the right 

 of exclusive possession, which is a property right, enabling 



him to interfere with or prevent the public access and 

 use of his claim. The statute reads, "no location of a 

 mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the 

 vein or lode within the limits of the claim located." 

 Locations made where no mineral exists are fraudulent. 



Before the creation of National Forests there was no 

 incentive on the part of the Land Oiifice to investigate 

 the validity of mere mining locations. The claimant 

 could maintain his rights for an indefinite period by doing 

 a specified amount of work annually — termed "assess- 

 ment" work — until he chose to bring the claim up for 

 patent. The Land Office then examined the claim and if 

 mineral was present in paying quantities, title or patent 

 was issued. 



But as soon as the National Forests were placed under 

 proper administration, the officials in charge found that 

 their management of the Forests was being greatly handi- 

 capped by the filing of numerous "lode" or "placer" 

 mining claims covering the choicest bodies of Government 

 timber, preventing timber sales and threatening the integ- 



ON THE RIM OF THE GR.\ND CA.XYO.X 

 In the middle foreground is the Hotel El Tovar. Near it is the home and business place of the Kolb Brothers, and along the rim are numerous sites of mining claims. 



