1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



449 



instrument for seeking to acquire il- 

 legally non-mineral but timbered areas 

 in the forest reserves. 



The law permits an association of 

 eight persons to locate 160 acres of 

 public lands after a discovery of min- 

 eral sufficiently valuable to justify ex- 

 ploitation as a mine. The same asso- 

 ciation of persons can locate as many 

 such tracts as they may discover to 

 contain valuable mineral. After a dis- 

 covery has been made upon the ground 

 the location is made by filing, in the 

 proper recording office in the State 

 where the lands located are situated, 

 a declaration signed by each member 

 of the association of persons. The lo- 

 cators are given by law the right of 

 possession of any lands properly lo- 

 cated, and are not compelled to pay 

 for or seek legal title to the lands 

 while they continue to spend the 

 amount required by law ($100 per 

 year) for the actual development of a 

 mine upon each 1 60 acres. 



Until the restrictions upon the spec- 

 ulative acquisition of timbered land 

 had been made by the creation of for- 

 est reserves and by the repeal of some 

 of the laws permitting speculative en- 

 try, the Department of the Interior 

 did not inquire whether a valid dis- 

 covery had been made as a basis for 

 a mining location until application was 

 made for a patent conveying legal 

 title from the Government to the lo- 

 cators. Evidence of expenditure was 

 held to justify the conclusion that a 

 valid mineral discovery had been made 

 upon the land for which legal title 

 was sought. Parties desiring to se- 

 cure timbered lands in forest reserves 

 thought they saw, in these provisions 

 of the law and methods of administra- 

 tion, an opportunity to secure control 

 of and title to large tracts of such 

 lands, and. through pretended discov- 

 eries and under the guise of compli- 

 ance with the mining laws, numerous 

 and large tracts of nonmineral land 

 are being appropriated for some spec- 

 ulative purpose. 



In Butte and Plumas Counties, Cal- 

 ifornia, is located the Plumas Forest 

 Reserve, withdrawn from entry in 1902 



and made a permanent forest ftserve 

 in 1905. Because of its heavy growth 

 of sugar and yellow pine timber, its 

 extensive water power, and its prob- 

 able early railroad facilities within 

 forest reserves, it presented the most 

 tempting field for the development by 

 the speculators of this scheme of ac- 

 quisition. Its undoubted mineral 

 wealth, shown by past and present 

 mining operations, made the perver- 

 sion of the mineral land laws the most 

 plausible scheme for acquisition and 

 monopoly of large quantities of tim- 

 bered land or land surrounding water 

 power, although only a small propor- 

 tion of such land can be, by any possi- 

 bility, shown to contain mineral. One 

 party has, with the assistance of seven 

 others, some of whom are in his em- 

 ploy and others under his control, 

 made locations of approximately 280,- 

 000 acres of heavily timbered land in 

 this forest reserve. 



The suspicion of fraud suggested 

 by their extensive operation may be 

 understood by recalling that the first 

 real mineral land law was enacted in 

 1866, and since that date there have 

 been sold by the United States under 

 it and the amendatory or enlarging 

 act of 1872, less than 200,000 acres in 

 the entire State of California ; less 

 than 300,000 acres in Colorado ; less 

 than 150,000 acres in Montana; less 

 than 75,000 acres in Utah ; about 50,- 

 000 acres in each of the States of Ore- 

 gon and Idaho, and less than 40,000 

 acres in Nevada, New Mexico, Wash- 

 ington, and Wyoming, respectively. 



The lands in the Plumas Forest Re- 

 serve covered by the locations referred 

 to have been subject to mineral entry 

 since the enactment of the mineral- 

 land laws, and the lands located are 

 interspersed with mines practically all 

 of which have been abandoned. The 

 locations have been distributed 

 throughout the years 1902 to 1905. 

 inclusive, but no mining has been done 

 upon them. The locators are not min- 

 ers and the selections were made by 

 timber experts. It seems probable 

 that one of the prime objects of these 

 locations was to protect a proposed 



