144 CLASSIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 



whether or not the lands shall be allotted to the Indians, in th« 

 other what kind of entry or settlement on them shall be permitted. 

 Lands valuable for minerals are withheld from allotment to In- 

 dians, as they are from the Northern Pacific Eailroad grant, although 

 for Indian lands no exception of coal and iron is made. A Survey 

 geologist was engaged during the summer of 1912 in classifying the 

 Flathead Eeservation in Montana for the purpose of determining 

 the mineral character of certain lands and their availability for allot- 

 ment to the Indians, and many other classifications, both of individ- 

 ual allotments and of entire reservations, have been reported to th.e 

 Indian Office. 



Before Indian lands are thrown open to settlement it is desirable 

 to know what parts of them contain valuable mineral deposits, 

 in order that these parts may not be alienated as agricultural land. 

 Failure to classify the lands in advance of the opening of the reser- 

 vations is likely to result in conflict between agricultural and mineral 

 claimants. This has occurred, for example, in the northern part of 

 the Colville Reservation, which was thrown open to prospectors in 

 1898 and to agricultural claimants later. Numerous protests made 

 by mineral claimants in this region against the issuance of patents 

 to agricultural claimants have aroused the bitter resentment of the 

 ranchers, who have been prevented by these protests from getting 

 final patents. An examination of these lands for the purpose of de- 

 termining whether the mineral claims showed deposits sufficiently 

 valuable to entitle the claimants to mineral patents or whether these 

 claimants were acting in bad faith, as alleged by some of the ranch- 

 ers, was accordingly made by a geologist of the Survey in the season 

 of 1912 ; and during the same season the unallotted part of the Col- 

 ville Reservation was examined for the purpose of settling conflicts 

 between mineral claimants and Indian allottees and of classifying 

 the remaining unallotted lands. 



Another type of classification has arisen of late, in which the Sur- 

 vej' has been required to pass upon many and varied individual 

 cases in which the propriety of granting patent to claimants was in 

 doubt. It is sometimes suspected that attempt is being made to ob- 

 tain valuable agricultural or timber land or strategic points for 

 power development by the subterfuge of a mining claim on land 

 where in reality no mineral deposit of substantial value has been 

 found. On the other hand, there is sometimesi danger lest a* valu- 

 able lode or placer deposit be covered by some fomfi of nonmineral 

 entry. If these cases are important the department may call upon 

 the Survey for any information that it may possess concerning a 

 certain tract, or it may even direct that a geologist be detailed to 

 make a special examination. One case of this type, of interest as 

 one of the earliest examples of land classification by the Geological 



