The record-union., 1895-01-31
AN APOCRYPRAL STORY.

A story is told, and repeated with great
persistency by some of our San Francisco
contemporaries, that one Horace F.
Clarke, who has been engaged by the
State Miners Association to represent
that association before the Land Depart
ment at Washington, was refused access
to some lists of selection made by rail-
road companies in California. These
lists of selection are filed with the local
district land offices everywhere and are
accessible to the public. Copies may be
had from the land offices of the railroad
companies. They are filed with the Cen
eral Land Office at Washington, and are
part of the public records.
This Horace f. Clarke was for long
time an employe of the General Land
Office. He was appointed special Com
missioner to visit California and take
testimony as to the mineral or nom
mineral character Of the Georgetown Di-
vide. He was to examine into a list COM
prising about 1000 acres of land. He
spent about five months in motions look
ing to an examination, and he never got
into position where he could report, and
therefore he never reported anything
concerning the land. He and members
of his family, however, travelled twice to
Washington and back on railroad passes.
and travelled throughout the State of
California through the economy of a like
courtesy. Horace F. Clarke demanded of
the department at Washington corps OF
engineers to find the corners for him, He
was sent to investigate the physical char
acter of certain specific parts of the pub
lie domain, to wit: odd numbered sec
tions within the limits of a railroad grant,
and he naturally concluded that he would
like to identify the land he was examin-
ing. So he asked the department for a
surveyor to point out the corners.
There is not the slightest probability of
truth in the statement that he was re-
fused access to the lists of selection made
by railroads. That is a statement that
will be believed only by stupid and igno-
rant people. The State Miners Associa-
ton could have obtained such lists from
the railroad companies already indicated.
Whatever happened, however, Clarke
and the General Land Office soon reached
misunderstanding, just as they did in
the case of the mineral disproof of the
Georgetown Divide Clarke stayed in the
State for nearly year, but he very soon
got into wrangle with the authorities at
Washington and was dismissed.
Mr.. Clarke is very competent man in
many regards, but after nearly year of
effort to ascertain whether few thousand
acres on the Georgetown Divide were
mineral or non-mineral, he never got
into position to report anything. So all
of his work came to naught. Here, then,
was competent and welI-trained exam
iner who, after spending a year, got but
little farther than examining a few acres
OF land and /, finding the corners of the
rest; and yet the attempt was to examine
the land and report as 10 the mineral or
non-mineral character of 1000 acres.
There is a bill before Congress proyid-
ing for the appointment of three Com
missioners to examine in the field all the
lands granted within the State of Califor-
MIA to the Southern Pacific Railroad Com
pany, the Western Pacific Railroad Com
pany, the Central Pacific Railroad Com
pany, and the California and Oregon Rail-
road Company, an aggregate of four
millions OF acres. Horace f. Clarke
worked for nearly year and did not
reach point where he was ready to re-
port on any part of the 1000 acres of land.
Three Commissioners might be expected
to report on 100000 acres within the space
at least of 100 years.
In the meantime the story that Horace
+. Clarke was refused access to the public
records in the General Land Office at
Washington is evidently one that pro-
ceeds from very fertile, florid imagina-
tion.
THE Legislature of California has, by a
series Of absurd resolutions, petitioned