The Shasta courier., 1869-11-13
The Mineral Lands Surveyed
and Offered For sale.

The pernicious policy of refusing to sell
the lands in the mining districts is aban-
doned. The nomad placer miners have
lost their control and nearly all influence
in the State, and the interests Of the per-
manent population win hereafter be dom
inant In all the mining counties, save
Trinity and Nevada, and perhaps even
there, large majority of the people wish
to see Che lands sold, believing that there
is more profit in farming than in mining
on those lands now unoccupicd and that
mining will be more profitable if the land
is owned in tracts of so and 160 acres,
than it is now while held under tenancy at
will in small claims. The newspapers gen
orally in the muontains, without distinction
ofparty, favor the sale Of the mineral lands.
The Sonora Democrat, the Placerville
Ledger, the SHASTA COURIER, the Amador
Ledger, and a number of other jealous DO
litical organs on both sides, demand the
sale urgently.
Although there are some restrictions
which should be removed, the land in the
mountain counteis can nearly all be obtain
ed now on the same terms as in the valleys.
The United States Commissioner of the
General Land Office has made ruling
that if a tract in the mineral districts is
not occupied for mining purposes the Gov
ernment will not keep it open for explora-
ton for an indefinite time. He says:
4" IF it a tract] has no existing mines
upon it, and no metalliferous vein of rock
is known to pass through or penetrate it,
the land is not properly classed as mineral
although contrary to present indications,
gold, silver, cinnabar or copper may at some
future time be discovered on it. i
Lands not occupied for mining purposes,
and not traversed by veins of gold, silver,
cinnabar or copper are classed as agricul-
tural lands. The policy of the
Government is to dispose of its domain to
industrious and permanent settlers. ;" x
Even an occasional mistake, by disposing
Of tracts containing placer gold, under the
Homestead or Presumption Law, but not
occupied for mining purposes at the time,
nor known to contain gold in sufficient
quantities to render them more valuable for
for mining than for farming, would be a
lese evil than to discourage settlement and
improvement, by keeping open for indef-
mite exploration large sections of country
well adapted for farms and gardens. II
gold should afterwards be found in paying
quantities, there need be no fear that it
would be suffered to remain unmined very
long and the fact that the miner in that
case would not be mere temporary oc.
cupent of the land, but permanent settler
and improver of the soil would, certainly,
not be to the prejudice of the State or Ma
tional Government"
The Commissioner, in the passages above
quoted, implies, but he does not distinctly
say, that pre-emption or homestead claim
on 100 acres of land in the mineral dis
triets, not occupied by miners at the time
of taking possession, and not then known
to be intersected by any lode of gold, silver,
mercury or copper, is valid, and will be
perfected, no matter what placer deposits
in the land may be known at the time, or
what lodes may be subsequently discovered.
In other words, unoccupied lands, gener-
ally, in the mineral districts are now open
to pre-emptioners and homesteaders, on the
same terms as in the valleys Large dis
tricts of the foothills of the Sierra have
been sectionized or surveyed in the same
manner as the valleys are, and the survey
ors are now at work. Surveyor General
Day informs US that he is now letting con-
tracts as fast as he has the means, for the
survey of all the Sierra of any value for
agricultural or numbering purposes. AL
ready $50, 900 acres have been sectionized
in Plumas, Nevada, Yuba, Placer, and
Tuolumne, and contracts have been let fo1
sectionizing I townships (each containing
36 square miles) in Plumas, 10 in Butte
II in Amador, II in Calaveras, 9 in Tuol-
umne, in Mariposa, and 8 in Tulare-
At some points these contracts reach to
elevations of 1000 or 5000 feet, and they
include considerable areas more than 1000
feet above the sea. Nelson's Bar, Grass
Valley, Grizzly Flat, Volcano, Mokelumne
Hill, Sonora and Jacksonville are in town
ships either sectionized or let A new era
of prosperity will, we hope, soon dawn on
the mountains counties.-Alta