run where there was no traffic between terminal points. So the Central Pacific had to have land grants. To it, were granted in 1862 or thereabouts, every odd section in every township for twenty miles on each side the right-of-way; but the law specially and specifically provided that "no mineral lands should be included by the railway company;" and the Huntington crowd adhered to the spirit of that law till the Harriman control came in. Then, the railway began. patenting its lands wholesale. Within

seven years, more than 2,000,000 acres were applied for patents under the old Central Pacific grant. Of these two Of these two million acres, three hundred thousand acres were openly known to possess gold, silver and copper deposits. Suit was instituted by the Federal government at Carson City against the Central and Southern Pacific for 75,000 acres that the railways had patented as non-mineral; and at the suit-which by the way, not a dozen papers in the United States reported-it was brought out that much of this land had been producing gold and silver for thirty years. Patent had been secured by advertising in papers of small local circulation and by making affidavit

thirty years, some claims valued at $1,000,000-passed to the railway. Deadly easy claim jumping, was it not? And do you suppose the old prospectors would have been left in possession any more than the prospectors at Nome, when the land looters began their manipulation there? But at this stage in Nevada, the Federal government got busy. Seventy-five thousand acres were restored; and unless some unseen influence intervenes, suit will be instituted for 150,000 acres more. The areas involved in this land looting exceed many times over the areas involved in the pillage by robber barons of old; and this pillage is done under sanction of democracy and under cover of law, Again, Conservation becomes a mighty vital and real thing.

An unseen influence sometimes intervenes to the clogging of the wheels of justice. In fact, so clogged have the wheels of justice become in one or two cases, that they have stopped going round altogether and they have stayed stopped till the Statute of Limitations had intervened when-whizz like a buzz saw, they began going again; but of course, the Statute of Limitations had removed

the case from reach of the wheels of justice. All this, apropos of a case which every land investigator in the West knows and nobody talks about; for it is no longer permitted that such facts be given the public whose Public Do

main is in danger. It is a well known fact in Colorado and Nevada and California that one of the largest smelters in the West is located almost on top of a coking coal area of 2,000 acres, obtained at $2.50 an acre as desert lands through dummies paid by the attorneys of the smelting company; but that was nine years ago. Though the land office men knew of the dummy business, action for cancellation of fraudulent patents was not begun till it was too late to begin. Now the question is should the government institute suit for damages? Again, Conservation becomes a very practical thing and not a kid-glove affair at all. You understand now why the very word Conservation calls down a storm of abuse from certain quarters. The kid-glove theory has become, in fact, a thing that may mean restitution. If space permitted the story of the Alaskan railways, there would be another story of violence and murder, to be sure only the murder of poor foreign navvies nerved up by whiskey but still-murder. Meanwhile, the Nevada state legislature which is Democratic has passed a unanimous vote of thanks to the Department of the Interior for

has ever known, or, for that matter, by anything the world has ever known. There is greater demand for lumber today than ever before; and lumber is scarcer than ever before. Best of all for the lumber men, prices are higher than ever before.

saving the mineral lands. It remains to be seen what will be done about those smelting coal lands.

The stealing of the timber lands is the most accomplished work among the land looters of the West today. Any man, who could invent a new way to do it, would be paid a royalty by the land looters for his idea. To begin with-don't measure the value of timber lands in the Pacific Northwest by anything the East

Then consider the enormous girth, the enormous height, of these Pacific Northwest trees; and they grow closer than ever the Eastern hardwood forests grew. Think what it means-a single California redwood or a single Douglas fir or a single spruce supplies sufficient lumber to build a cottage of six rooms. Some of this lumber runs 300,000 feet to the acre, worth from $2 to $3 per M on the stump. A single quarter section has been known

to run 20,000,000 feet. Quarter sections have yielded net $20,000, $30,000 and more; but don't run away with the idea that the homesteader took in those returns. He didn't! A forest yielding those high returns is hard to conquer as adamant. The individual man might as well tackle the eternal rocks with a file as these trees with his individual muscle. They require gangs of muscle and strong machinery and whole trains of flat carsnot bob-sleighs and wagons-to haul them to market. Your homesteader who finds himself in this kind of a forest must either sell out to the big operator, or find himself in prison in a wilderness of wood, where his own unaided effort can never hew out roads and trails.

The prize quarter sections of the big timber country proved a stronger magnet to the land looter than gold or coal. It was so easy to get the dummy, then act as middleman towards the big oper

ator; and often, the looters did not even bother with a dummy. In Montana, the land loot very largely took the form of what is politely called "timber trespass." The big smelting companies use enormous quantities of timber. To obtain this, it was customary for them to contract with the small mill men and homesteaders to deliver so many million feet a year. Nothing wrong in that contract

-was there? But the small mill men and homesteaders would sit down on their own 160 acres, then instead of cutting from their own area, they cut all around outside, and delivered this stolen timber to the smelting company. The smelting company knew perfectly well what was being done, for they inserted in their contracts a clause providing they should not be liable to suits arising from the areas so cut. Roosevelt put a stop to this free-for-all grab by including these areas in the National forests, and in

spite of the saving clause, the smelting company has been compelled to pay a quarter of a million damages a year for these timber thefts.

Down in Colorado, the theft was worked slightly differently. The law allowed the homesteader to take windfall and dead timber from the Public Domain free; so the mill man would sit down on his homestead, set fire to a whole mountain slope of green timber, then saw himself into a millionaire from the timber killed by the fire which he had set. Stop was put to this profitable business, too, by including forested areas of the Public Domain in the National forest. In these two cases, Conservation becomes a very live sort of thing-a thing to be hated by the looters of the timber lands.

In certain areas of California, it is almost impossible to take washings from sand bars in any stream without finding minute particles of mineral. Whether the mineral is in paying quantities or not,

does not matter in the least. The finding of the specks constitutes a placer; so the land looter places blanket placer filings over the most valuable timbered areas. Over 260,000 acres of the most valuable timber in Plumas County were held on such titles. The case is now before the Department of the Interior.. Think what this means! Suppose each 160 acres of this area is worth the minimum of $10,000. On placer title, there has been quietly appropriated from Public Domain $18,000,000 of timber. Here, too, Conservation is no longer a merely academic thing. It is a standard of right versus wrong. Round that standard, the fight must rally; and perhaps the hardest fight of all is not for the thing itself, but against the forces of slander and misrepresentation. If such titles as those placer claims were allowed to stand-the public would be literally fenced off 260,000 acres of its own by the theft.

Down in Oregon, they have looted the