The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-07-31
VALUABLE SERVICE TO TH
RAILROAD COMPANY.

declaring that the Central Pacific Rail-
road Company is about to receive patents
to mineral lands worth S100,000,000. These
same papers have recently declared tina:
Mr.. Huntington is in Europe attempting
to float the securities of the Southern
Pacific Company. They are wont to de-
clare that Mr.. Huntington desires to pass
o bill extending the time of the payment
of the Central Pacific Railroad Com
pany's Indebtedness 10 the Government
Now, If the railroad company ia about to
receive irrefragible title to 500, 900
worth of property. the sale Of ten.
swenty. thirty or forty millions of bonds.
a. the case may be, becomes easy; and
since the entire indebtedness of the Cen
trail Pacific Railroad Company is only
about sixty millions, it is plain to per-
ceive that this one hundred millions for
mineral land makes the Southern Pacific
Company and the Central Pacific Rail-
7oad Company completely solvent in
ssitutions.
The question arises: Are these state
ments purposeful? Are they intended
to reinforce the credit of the railroad
companies? If this Is not the intention,
shen they are purposeIess, silly and ab
surd.
The railroad company is not laying
claim to 100000 acres, good. bad and in
different, in the mineral belt as it is
called, in the counties of FL Dorado, Ne
vada and Placer. If every acre of land
now listed could be patented without
cost the company would do well to sell it
for $3.50, 600. This statement will be re-
ceived as true by people in the mining
region, and it is equally well known to
be true by the land officers of the Gov
eminent. 1t would be perfectly safe
proposition on the part of the Central
Pacific Railroad Company to offer to take
100000 in cash for every acre of land to
which it may lay claim of any kind, in
law or in equity, between Sacramento
and the State line, within the limits of the
grant to the Central Pacific Railroad Com
large bodies Of timber in the Sierras on the
eastern slope of that range of mountains,
where no suspicion of mineral has ever
attached to the land. AS to the lands in
the mineral region on the west flank of
the Sierra Nevada, the Central Pacific
Railroad Company would very gladly
S250.00O. 1t is Offering to-day all of the
land, patented and unpatented, which by
any possibility is pstentable, within the
mineral belt in the counties of Nevada
and Ell Dorado for 81 % an acre. In the
first named county there are 1000 acres
and in the last about $4,000 acres. In
acres of land which, if it is decided to be
non-mineral in character, will be patent
able. Thus 90, 600 acres embraces approx
imately the entire acreage OF land in
volved in the mineral controversy. 1t
would be we'll sold at 81 80 an acre.
Within the limits of the grant to the
Central Pacific Railroad Company from
Sacramento to the State line there re-
main Of unpatented land about 400, 900
2ores. This includes high mountain sum-
mits. deep gorges, precipitous canyons,
with every other physical condition
which makes land valuable or valueless.
If all the odd-numbered sections of land
in the grant to the Central Pacific Com
psny in California, not disposed Of, were
patented to the Central Pacific Railroad
Company to-day, it could not be sold for
half million of dollars.
This being the plain truth of the propo-
sition, il is not easy to perceive the pur-
pose our contemporaries have in declar-
ing that the railroad is an applicant for
property the intrinsic value Of which is
not less than $780, 000, 900. In straight
line as the surveys of the United States
are laid. the distance from the city of
Sacramento to the State line is seventy
two miles. Owing to Spanish grants and
other dispositions by the Government,
no considerable land was found opposite
she line of the road west of Rocklin. The
grant therefore properly considered en-
braces one-half of the area found in al
tsrnsts odd-numbered sections forty
miles wide by fifty-fve miles in length;
or, If thrown into solid body, twenty
miles by ffty-fve miles in length. This
would give 1,1O0 sections of land of $40
acres each, or 100000 acres. Thus if no
odd-numbered section had been excepted
from the operation of the grant by reason
of subsistlng homestead and pre-emption
claims. or of having been sold or other
wise disposed of by the Government, the
entire grant within the limits of Califor-
MIA would have amounted to 704. 900 acres.
So far from this being the case, how
ever, very large proportion of the grant
had already found Governmental DISPOSE
ton. The western flank OF the Sierra Ne
vada Mountains was an old settled coun-
try when the rights of the Central Pacific
attached, and but small part of the land
remained in the ownership of the Gov
eminent when the grant was made.
The most careful estimate fails to dis
close the possibility of obtaining title to
more than 500, 900 acres, and of this
amount the company has already sold al
fyun Tn hof iUht G