218 FOREST OUTINGS 



then passed special acts excusing locators from doing their assessment work 

 in certain years. 



The net of it is that locators can secure control of strategically situated 

 tracts of public lands and hold them for long periods with little or no showing 

 of mineral and with scant and often no expenditures for development. 

 Mineral locators may cut timber from their claims. They may build flumes, 

 tramways, and other improvements across public lands. They may file on 

 additional areas of 5 acres for mill sites. 



Established in a pioneer time when conditions of living, of commerce, 

 and of transportation were primitive; and when all development was 

 hazardous, highly speculative, and attended by definite personal risk; where 

 mining was the major industry of the West, and other values, particularly 

 in lands, were relatively unimportant, the mining laws were purposely 

 framed to encourage the miner and to promote mineral exploration and 

 development of the mineral-bearing public lands. They served their original 

 purpose but in some respects they are now out of date. 



New uses and new needs for lands have developed which were undreamed 

 of in the pioneer days and could not have been anticipated. Nowadays 

 public lands, even though they may contain minerals, may be of much 

 higher value for other forms of public use. 



But under the Act of 1872, minor mineral values and single-purpose use 

 by an individual can outweigh much higher and far broader uses of public 

 lands. Nowhere is authority conferred on a public official to give proper 

 consideration to the multiple-use principle of land management, "For the 

 greatest good of the greatest number in the long run." 



FRAUDULENT CLAIMS . . . Many claims of little and often of no value for 

 mining have passed out of public control and into the hands of people who 

 wanted them and have used them for resorts, for store locations, for gas 

 and oil stations, and the like. 



The letter and spirit of the statutes make mineral contests difficult and 

 expensive. Repeated mineral examinations and careful sampling and 

 assaying are required. Each case must be completely worked up and com- 

 petent witnesses secured, and even then the outcome is uncertain. The 



