260 GKAVEL AND PLACER MINING IN ALASKA. [bull. 263. 
In Alaska, at least, the provisions called for by the above have 
become practically a dead letter, as is instanced by the case of the 
prospectors who during the season of 1903 were allowed to locate a 
group of claims defined as being on "Midas Creek, a tributary of a 
tributary of Koyukuk River." Midas Creek and the supposed loca- 
tions afterwards proved to be entirely mythical. 
The location law requires that the "location must be distinctly 
marked on the ground, so that its boundaries can be readily traced." 
How can the following decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, in the case of theMcKinley Creek Mining Co. v. Alaska United 
Mining Co., a which sustained the validity of a placer location where no 
attempt was made to actually mark the boundaries, be reconciled with 
the above? Lindley says: 
All that was done was to post notices on a snag or stump in a creek, claiming a 
certain number of feet running with the creek, and 300 feet on each side of the cen- 
ter of the creek, and referring to the claim as "the east extension of a certain-named 
claim and the west extension of another." Unless some facts or circumstances 
were represented to the court which can not be gleaned from the official report of the 
case, such a location would seem to fall short of the requirement that the claim shall 
be "distinctly marked on the ground, so that its boundaries may be readily traced." 
I have no hesitation in saying that in Alaska, especially in Seward 
Peninsula, no attempt is ordinarily made by the locator to mark 
the boundaries of claims beyond the setting of stakes at the four cor- 
ners averaging 3 feet in length by 1^ inches in diameter. These are 
generally overturned by the wind or uprooted by the frost within six 
months of the time of setting. And yet the burden of proof in case 
of subsequent dispute always rests on the relocator or the jumper. 
I will call attention to the fact that the suggestions leading to modi- 
fication in the present placer-mining law are directed to the reforming 
of the principal abuses which have been cited. Had time permitted, 
instances of abuse and misinterpretation of the present laws might 
have been indefinitely multiplied. Enough has been said to show that 
changes of a radical nature are needed in the laws and their adminis- 
tration, in order that the undoubted^ valuable mineral resources of 
Alaska may be exploited to the best advantage. 
Much fault has been found in past years with the Territorial admin- 
istration in the Klondike. That conditions affecting title have at times 
left much to be desired is undoubtedly true. At present efforts are 
being made to remed\ T the abuses which exist. In Alaska, on the other 
hand, each rich discovery of gold brings forth one or more lawsuits, 
and each new camp that is developed affords a profitable field of 
exploitation for swarms of parasites who, too indolent or too ignorant 
to devote themselves to bona fide mining, ingeniously strive, by mani- 
fold ways of trickery, to live by the labor of others. 
a Cited by Lindley, sec. 373. 
