6 ANNUAL REPORT OF 



the blackened trees will remain for a long period to shock 

 the traveling public. The damage to property has been 

 considerable, but it scarcely amounts to the weight of a 

 pin compared to the damage to scenery and the injury to 

 the public by spoiling the appearance of the country. It 

 was evident that the fires, or the most of them, had been 

 set by sparks from the railway engine, which from its di- 

 minutive appearance would strike any one as being in- 

 adequate to the work it had to do. This logging railway 

 passes through a country entirely uninhabited. All the 

 people at the terminus of the road are employes, either 

 of the transportation company or of the company who are 

 doing the logging, and it seemed to be useless to attempt a 

 criminal prosecution for these fires. Similar injury has 

 been done along other logging railways in previous years 

 and is liable to be repeated in other places unless means 

 are afforded for better watching. Such outrageous in- 

 juries make one wish that the time may soon come when 

 lumbering will be done under forestry methods. 



GUARANTEES BY RAILROAD COMPANIES AGAINST FIRES. 



The Act of Congress of March 3, 1875, grants railroad 

 companies right of way through the public lands of the 

 United States, and the Act of Congress of March 2, 1899, 

 grants general right of way for railroads through Indian 

 reservations; and the laws of Minnesota give railroad 

 companies power to acquire rights of way by purchase or 

 condemnation of land. None of these laws provide guar- 

 antees against causing forest fires by companies operating 

 railroads, and it would seem that they should be amended 

 so as to secure proper guarantees against such evils. It 

 is true that it has been held by the Secretary of the Inte- 

 rior (in the case of the Union River Logging Railroad Co. , 

 12 Land Decisions, 574) that a railroad operated chiefly 

 in the interest or for the benefit of private parties or cor- 

 porations has not the right of way through the public 



