The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1910-04-23

.nd full swing and permit the Location of saline an :"
s.Ia. and the result is the bill which Senator Nixon has nuV'"
vxn the "states defender" This bill pretends to throw op'"
rho nubTc" these valuable saline lands and permit them to De ooae'
az plaeers with no limit to the number any man might iOcae'
now law would also recognize any locations now made, and pern'
these locations to be perfected. This is the most vllamouS r""
of the bill, for in effect, it does not throw open these saline grOu"uS
",o IN public.' but confirms the trusts possession OF them. LII
anticipation of this bill becoming law, the trust has staked Ut every
foot of ground on all the vast stretches of borax ground IN m various
sections of Nevada and California, and as the claims lapse al 'e :"
lof 30 days, when no work is done, range riders are employed "
traverse the saked ground and mark up the dates OF o'he '0 9
which process will be continued until the new law is nacte Nv
this law goes into effect, therefore, there will be n ground "ro"n
open to the public, y for it will all have been gobbled up by the trust
These facts are set out more in detail in III general story founo III
this issue. How gigantic is this steal may be gathered !" TIC
following:
The reports of government surveyors, of Nevada and Cahforma
state surveys and of neurological commissions, show that In M 'a'e
of California m at least 10000 acres, containing deposits oil n'fe'
borax and salt that may by worked commercially ana 'ha' III 'e
state of Nevada re 100000 acres of like deposits.
The California deposits are chiefly in San Bernardino and lnyo
counties. in the district known as Death Valley and part OF them n
in the great saline sink, where the International Salt company is pro-
ducing great quantities of high grade salt from lands held IN part
rnder patent. under a lapse of the conservationists during which
saline lands could be taken up and patented under the placer location
laws, and part of the land is held by location notices that wouo DC
invalid were any allowed to contest title.
In Nevada the deposits are in the Blair, Rhodes, Columbus and
Fish Lake Valley marshes in EsmeraIda and Nye counties, and other
deposits ar in Washoe, Humboldt and Lincoln counties.
Experts who have carefully estimated the acreages ana Values
after long personal survey of these deposits, figure that at the lowest
estimate, the total of 100000 acres of saline lands in t he two states
are worth ST. 900 per acre or a total of $~450,O0000O. These lands will
be thrown open to blanket entry, combine and trust methods, II the
Nixon bill passes the senate. The above estimate figures the sahnes
contained in these deposits at less than five cents per ton in the
ground.
Although the people of tire state of Nevada. and those OF southern
California ae just beginning to realize the value of the thousands OF
acres Of deposits of borax. nitre and salt held in the bed of the great
inland sea, now dry, known as the great American desert, they nave
never asked for legislation that would throw these lands open for
blanket location and entry. They are content with securing their
20 acres individually, or organizing cooperative assocatchs' IN WHICH
each member takes up 20 acres after which the whole is worked under
one management. SO the action of Senator Nixon comes as a sur
Prise and unsolicited. With the publication of this article comes the
first general knowledge Of this action by t he people OF Nevada and
California. knowledge of the bill was in all likelihood had at 2G
Broadway, New York, long before the bill was introduced. The oil!
is directly in opposition to the wishes of the people of Nevada and
Caifornia-in direct opposition to the newly aroused sense OF The
need for the conservation of the natural resources OF the
nation. Little need to speculate as to why the bill, not demanded by
the constituency of the Nevada senator, was introduced.
Southwestern and western Nevada and southeastern California
have too few visible natural resources. Those vast expenses of
"alkali,' which are blazed with skeletons of human and animal le
and strewn with the wreck of wagon caravan after caravan, are now
seen to be an outpouring of natures wealth, as if in atonement for
leaving any part of the world so bare and fearsome. There are precious
metals underground in other sections; some states have their resources
of timber, of water power, of grazing and agricultural lands. The por-
ton of the two states referred to, however, have, as visible resources,
nothing but their silent, binding white and scorching expanses of salt
land borax and nitre-and these ae necessities for mankind. The
country-s supply of nitre for a wars powder may sometime of neces-
lsity come from these beds; from the borax beds must come the sal
ammoniac with which the telephones and telegraph battery cells of the
country must be supplied; and every man, woman and child, every
horse and COW, every dog and other beast, must have it's modicum of
salt, else flesh will decay and rot with scurvey, and bones soften INTO
nothingness
1t is a vast heritage for the nation, and especially for the western
part, now in its infancy and needing every resource for it's fullest de-
Il veloDment And n waStern senator asant tha yuautarp pmJo
lis trying to place in the hands of the New York trust magnates this
property of nestimable value. It is in line with the attempt to sweep