I .............. . 



^B Many examples might be given to show the extent of the abuses 

 ^Binder this act. The Old Dominion Copper Mining and Smelting Com- 

 pany of Arizona, for instance, cut several million feet of lumber in 

 1900 and 1901 from land never proved to be mineral."^ A company in 

 the Black Hills of South Dakota built and for years operated a rail- 

 way extending nearly forty miles into the public domain, for the pur- 

 pose of bringing lumber and fuel to its mines, from land never shown 

 to be mineral; and, according to reports, shipped millions of feet of 

 lumber to Omaha for sale there. ^^ It has been claimed that, owing to a 



I rule of the Department of the Interior granting permits to cut dead 

 and down timber, large areas were burned over year after year in 

 ■rder to kill the timber, that railroads followed the paths of such 

 pres, building merely to accommodate the traffic in burned timber; 

 khat sawmills were built and a supply of material provided for them 

 py systematic burning."^ 



The Permit Act was at first perhaps even more destructive in its 

 effects than the Free Timber Act, because its provisions were more 

 extravagantly liberal. By allowing free timber for manufacturing pur- 

 poses, it practically gave away, subject to the regulations of the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior, for all purposes except export, as much lumber 

 as anyone happened to want to take. In the first six years of its opera- 

 tion, nearly 300 permits were issued, granting to mining and lumber 

 companies about 300,000,000 feet of lumber. Some of the grantees — 

 notably the Big Blackfoot Milling Company, the Bitter Root Devel- 

 opment Company, and the Anaconda Mining Company — secured per- 

 mits at different times to cut many million feet.^° The Anaconda Min- 

 ing Company for years consumed an annual average of probably more 

 than 250,000 cords of wood and 40,000,000 feet of lumber, and sup- 

 plied not only its mines and smelters with timber cut from the public 

 lands, but established lumber yards in different towns, where not less 

 than 50,000,000 feet of timber was sold annually.^^ Part of this timber 

 was secured under the provisions of the Permit Act. 



67 Quoted in Report, I>and Office, 1901, 9T, 98. 



68 S. Doc, 105; 55 Cong. 1 sess. 



68 Proceedings, Society of Am. Foresters, Nov., 1905, 59. 

 TO Report, Land Office, 1897, 76. 



71 Ibid., 77. In 1900, the Secretary of the Interior adopted regulations prohibit- 

 ing the use of free timber for smelting purposes. ("Land Decisions," 29, 571, 572.) 



