The Chitina leader., 1912-11-12
DEPARTsfENTAL RULINGS

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 The coming change in the national administration is looked forward to with much anticipation by many Alaskans. And more particularly be- cause there will be a change in the. ldepartment of the Interior. It is now generally conceded that Secre- tary, Fisher and his bureau rulings have done much to discourage Alas ,, ka pioneers and to. keep locked up the rich coal deposits of the territory. There is now hope that a broader policy will follow upon the part of the new Secretary, and that there will |, be a stricter compliance with lexisting laws rather than the issuing of frequent and most peculiar de- partmental rulings. A recent act of the Interior department has been the subject of adverse criticiasm upon the part of newspapers in all mining tsections. On that subject the Los Angles Times recently had the fol- lowing: "A recent ruling of the department at Washington with respect to min- eral locations is what might have been expected from a bureau. officer who never climbed the mountainside and swung his pick for days against its adamantine face to determine whether the quartz streak widened or petered as it went down.
 "The: ruling is that, in order to justify a location, there must be a fvein of rock in place, and that it must carry gold or other valuable mineral in sufficient quantities "to justify a prudent man" in the expenditure of his time and money in the effort to develop valuable mine.
 But the prospector is not "a pru- dent man. not by any manner of means, and sometimes it happens that he has no money to expend. 4 With no capital other than the burro who is at once his friend, his com lpanion and the transportation com pany that carries his pick, his shovel, his bacon, and beans, and flour, and water ,canteen, he crosses deserts that burn under the throbbing light, and climbs mountains that have been
 worn out in the conflicts of choas and thrown away upon the earth. There he searches for the gold and silver that make the arteries of commerce throb with the vital fluid as welcome to progress as were the waters of
 Horeb to the thirsty Israelite, or the copper which is needed, to carry the |eletric juice along trolley and tele- graph and telephone lines. If he finds what he seeks Uncle Sam is the
 richer for his find, and cities grow, and industries thrive and homes are
 built because of it. If he finds it not the rugged mountain is not less valu- able because of his efforts.
 Some of the most valuable mines
 would never have been developed or even located under this recent ruling of the land office. There is often lpresented on the surface thin streak of quartz which the assayer in the, neighboring town reports con-
 tains only trace of gold, ''yet ten
 feet, twenty feet, fifty feet, hundred
 feet below it may run into wide body of ore rich enough to add the finder to the muster roll of million aires. There were mines the Con- stock that for the first 700 feet did seeking the blue vein,Y with credit Il exhausted and overcome by despair,
 not yield hat full of pay ore, and
 then they yielded tens of millions of
 dollars The story is still told in
 Nevada county of the. imprudent
 man who, after months of work in seeking the "blue vein," with credit exhausteh and overcome by despair,
 took his own life. After the burial a friend went down the shaft to gather the tools that were there and lconcluded to give the prospect one more shot. That shot disclosed the
 motherd lode, and the footsteps that the pioneer made with blood and
 tears filled with shining sands for those who came after.
 Will the government fill the mountains with high-browed, high collared, silk-shirted, eye-glassed ex- perts to nse around on the trail of the prospectOrS and prevent them