68 LAWS APPLICABLE TO THE NATIONAL FORESTS. 



National Forest lands, either with or without a permit from the Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture. (1 Sol. Op., 477.) 



The act of April 28, 1904 (33 Stat., 525), amending the coal-land 

 laws, as theretofore extended to Alaska, did not remove the restric- 

 tion as to the quantity of such lands enterable by one person or asso- 

 ciation, but merely provided a method by which unsurveyed coal 

 lands in Alaska could be acquired subject to the limitations of the 

 general coal-land laws. (The Cunningham claims (United States v. 

 Schofield et al., 41 L. D., 176) ; affirmed on rehearing 41 L. D., 244.) 



Open cuts and tunnels made merely for the purpose of ascertaining 

 whether a group of claims contains coal and not with the intent to 

 develop operating mines do not satisfy the statutory requirement as 

 to opening and improving. (Id. ; see also Thad Stevens, 37 L. D., 

 723; Esther Filer, 35 L. D., 360.) 



Persons who file declartory statements and then abandon them 

 without valid cause or excuse are disqualified to make new entries. 



(id.) 



No right of location and entry under the act of April 28, 1904, is 

 acquired by merely discovering an outcrop of coal, staking the claim, 

 recording the notice of location, and applying for patent. (John L. 

 Long, 43 L. D., 305.) 



The benefits of the act of May 28, 1908, authorizing the consolida- 

 tion of claims or locations of coal lands in Alaska, can be shared only 

 by persons who made such locations in good faith — that is, honestly 

 and lawfully — prior to November 16, 1906, in their own interests 

 individually, without fraud, collusion, or deceit, or any purpose to 

 violate any provision of the law. (Op. Atty. Gen., 38 L. D., 86.) 



An individual or association expending time and money in an 

 honest effort to open and develop coal deposits is not a trespasser and 

 is entitled to the coal extracted as an incident to the reasonable prose- 

 cution of the work. (Ghost v. United States (C. C. A. Eighth Cir- 

 cuit), 168 Fed., 841.) 



It is unlawful for a corporation, some of whose stockholders have 

 made coal entries, to acquire coal lands in excess of 320 acres as the 

 result of a scheme whereby some of its officers and employees make 

 entries in their own names but for its benefit and at its expense, and, 

 after securing patents, convey the lands to the corporation. An 

 incorporated company is an " association of persons," in the meaning 

 of the coal-land laws. (United States v. Trinidad Coal Co., 137 

 U. S., 160.) 



TIMBER AND STONE LAWS. 



Act of June 3, 1878 (20 Stat, 89). 



That surveyed public lands of the United States within the (public 

 land 1 ) States, not included within military, Indian, or other reser- 

 vations of the United States, valuable chiefly for timber, but unfit 

 for cultivation, and which have not been offered at public sale, 2 

 according to law, may be sold to citizens of the United States, or per- 

 sons who have declared their intention to become such, in quantities 

 not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres to any one person or asso- 



1 Amendment of Aug. 4, 1892 (27 Stat., 348). 



2 The distinction between offered and unoffered lands was abolished by the act of May 18. 

 1898 (30 Stat., 418), as to homestead and timber anO stone entries. 



