in our gold-bearing regions. The business of
mining naturally awakens the strongest passions. It sharpens the
faculties and dulls the conscience. It gives to cupidity its
keenest edge. Its prizes are often rich and suddenly gained, and
when they are sought through the forms of a law which compels a
man to choose between an expensive and hazardous litigation and
robbery, human nature is severely tried. No situation could well
be more deplorable than that which obliges a man to pay heavy black-
mail as the only means of saving his property from legal confiscation
by another; and the moral ravages of a code which allows this can
not be computed. It tempts civilized men to become savages and
savages to become devils. It is not a mistake merely, but a great
misfortune, that our laws touching so delicate and vital a question
as the ownership and transfer of mineral lands were not so framed
as to avert these frightful evils. As far as the past is concerned
they are without remedy, and there is no positive safeguard for
the future but in a return to the time-honored principles which
give to the owner of the surface all that may be found within his
lines, extended downward vertically, and refer all disputes to the
old-fashioned and familiar machinery of the General Land Office.
This system gave order and peace to the great lead and copper
regions of the Northwest, and it would bring with it the same
inestimable blessings to the harassed and sorely tried regions of
the Pacific slope.

About the same time the action of Congress supplied another example
of hasty and slip-shod legislation, which has been perhaps equally
prolific of evil. The State of California, soon after her admission,
had assumed the right to dispose of the public lands within her
borders according to her own peculiar wishes, and in disregard of
the authority of the United States. This led to such serious
conflicts and complications, that a remedy was sought in a bill to
quiet land titles in that State. It was a very questionable measure,
inasmuch as the parties claiming title under the State could only
be relieved by recognizing her illegal acts as valid, and at the
expense of claimants under the laws of the United States. It
necessarily involved the right of pre-emption, and this was distinctly
presented in connection with what was known as the Suscol Ranch in
that State. It contained about ninety thousand acres, and was
covered by an old Spanish