FOREST SERVICE. 479 



alleged that $1,500 worth of work had been done. Investigation 

 showed that all the work that had been performed was in grading for 

 driveways and for building locations, and that it actually amounted 

 to less than $300 at a liberal estimate. It further developed that the 

 locators had incorporated a company for the exploitation and sale of 

 building sites for summer homes, this location being in the mountains, 

 within easy reach of a thickly populated section of country, and di- 

 recth' on an electric car line leading from a city of considerable size. 

 Plere the dealer in suburban summer homes sought to misuse the 

 mining laws. 



Not long since a large mining company, operating mines just upon 

 the border of one of the national forests, applied for the purchase of 

 a tract of timber situated within the forest, desiring and in fact being 

 in actual need of the timber in its mining operations. The local 

 forest officer proceeded with the usual preliminaries necessary in mak- 

 ing a sale. While he was doing so it became known in the neighbor- 

 hood generally that the mining company was making a purchase of 

 the timber on a certain tract of land; whereupon some individuals 

 immediately proceeded to the tract and placed thereon mineral loca- 

 tions, alleging the existence of valuable minerals, and endeavored to 

 compel the mining company to pay them as well as the Government 

 for the timber. Failing in this plan of extortion, the locators aban- 

 doned the claims, admitting that all they wanted was the timber. 

 Here the grafter tried to misuse the mining law and exact tribute 

 from the miner. 



In a California case an effort was made by means of mining loca- 

 tions to secure control of the most valuable and important bodies of 

 timber in one of the national forests. One man, with the aid of two 

 or three others and the use of the names of others, covered thousands 

 of acres of valuable timber land by means of placer locations. The 

 report by Government experts and the decision of the Commissioner 

 of the General Land Office held the claims to be invalid because of in- 

 sufficiency of discovery and the absence of showing of valuable min- 

 eral deposits. Here the timber grabber tried to misuse the mining 

 law. 



The men who engage in mining as a legitimate permanent industry 

 have no incentive to evade the law, since they are not limited as to the 

 lime within which they must apply for patent but are at liberty to 

 develop the ground and extract the mineral to any extent, subject 

 only to the mining laws of the State. The minor has no trouble in 

 applying for patent under the mining laws for gi'ound chiefly valu- 

 able for mineral. The man who has trouljle is the man who tries to 

 secure, under cover of the mining laws, a town site, a summer resort, 

 valuable timberland, a water-power site, watering places in the 

 desert, or mineral springs in the mountains. Such frauds, in no sense 

 connected with the mining industry, would thrive and multiply if 

 mining claims were not reported upon before being passed. 



Whether or not legitimate mining development has been handi- 

 capped by the examinations made in the years since the making of 

 such examinations begun may be judged in the light of the fact that 

 more than four out of every five of the claims examined during the 

 entire period have been reported upon favorably. 



The present procedure is on all fours witli that followed by the 

 Interior Department with respect to land withdrawals by the Gov- 



