208 



UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Map X. — 1 88 1 — Third General Assembly. 



and Mosquito Ranges, its attention was called by the discovery of great 

 silver lodes near the old town of Oro. At first it divided the county, giv- 

 ing its north end, north of five miles south of the first correction line, the 

 descriptive name of Carbonate.^ But before the session ended, Car- 



preted as running in part along the Rio Grande, although the writer has been unable to find any statutory 

 authority for the ruling of the Chaffee county court, and incKnes to the opinion that a better interpretation of 

 the statute would have been reached had the court been able to pass the matter back to the state engineer for 

 lawful action, rather than to decide the location of the line itself. 



The Saguache-Rio Grande Une is Ukewise in some doubt. When Rio Grande was erected in 1874 its 

 northern line was the old southern line of Saguache, passing through Del Norte and Cochetopa Pass. In an 

 act of February 8, 1879, Rio Grande was increased by all of Saguache lying south of the tenth correction 

 line, from its intersection with the first guide meridian east, west thirty miles, north six miles, and west to the 

 Hinsdale line (Sess. Laws, 1879, p. 48). It has been commonly held that this act transferred to Saguache all 

 of Rio Grande lying north of the described Une, and in this spirit the best maps are commonly drawn. But 

 the text of the act contains no reference whatever to an increase of Saguache. The maps here presented 

 accept the current assumption that such was the intent of the legislature of 1879, and that the statute was 

 merely defective in phrase. But there is much reason to beUeve that a technical interpretation of the law would 

 restore to Rio Grande its Cochetopa triangle. Such was the opinion of Maxwell in 1892, and the writer accepts 

 his argument as conclusive. The Chaffee county court threw out his ruling because of the manner in which 

 it had been made, not on any avowed ground of an incorrect interpretation of law {Sixth Biennial Report, p. 47). 



' Act of February 8, 1879 {Sess. Laws, 1879, p. 47). The "Camp of the Carbonates," as Leadville was 

 popularly known, brought Colorado into the public eye in 1878 and 1879. Some of the contemporary bibliog- 

 raphy may be found in F. L. Paxson, "Preliminary Bibliography of Colorado History," in University of Col- 

 orado Studies, Vol. Ill, pp. 19-24 



