Iditarod pioneer., 1914-10-10
JUDGE F. E. FULLER'S DECISION
 IN CASE OF ADAMS VS. '. (. CO.

plaintiff, except the small strip running across the ground so abandoned.
 The defendants urged that the plaintiff S locations were entirely vodi, because not made in conformity with Section 2331 of the Revised Statutes, requiring claims made upon unsurveyed lands to conform as near as practicable with the United States sys- i tenn of public land surveys, and the rec tangular subdivisions of such surveys
 "Shoestring" Locations Invalid
 'If the decisions of the land office and its regulations are to be followed, defend ants contention must be sustained. For l following the decision re Snowflake Placer | (37 L. D. 250J, the rule has been adopted that claim located by one or two per sons must be such as can be entirely in cluded within square forty-acre tract; in other words, that 1t must not exceed 1920 feet in length. Undoubtedly the plaintiff could not obtain patent to his claim in the form in which it was located While the courts may not be required to follow this rule rigidly and undoubtedly should give some effect to the words Of the statute, 'as near as practicable am satisfied that it IS incumbent upon a person making loca tion which does not conform to the rule to establish by evidence the impractlcablllty of conforming thereto. In other words, he must show by evidence that on account of the situation of the land and the area that IS open for location, it is impracticable to locate a tract in such form as is required by the rule of the land office in segregatng piece of land adapted to ordinary mining purposes. This the plaintiff seems to me to have failed to est ablsh in this case. From the situation of the land 1t IS not apparent that he could not have located his claim in more compact form, and a location the length of which is more than twenty times its width does not seem to me reasonably to comply with the law. Although various decisions of the land office hold 'shoestrlng' locations invalid, the courts do not seem to have gone to that length; but the cir cult court of appeals for tlis circuit seems to intimate that the construction of the law adopted by the land og',e i, " proper Craig, TO Fed 62,l
 This conclusion makes 1t unnecessary to consider whether or not the plaintiff could have made any valid location within the boundaries of the Prospector claim as orlgl- nallv staked, under the permission he had from part of the owners and without the knowledge or consent of all, within the rules laid down in Zimmerman vs. Fun chion l16l Fed 859l, Jones vs. Wild Goose M. < T. Co. (177 Fed 95l Price vs. Me Intosh (12l Fed. 7l6), oharkey vs. Can ami (48 Ore. l12), S5 Pac. 2l9; L. R. A. (n. s.) 791),
 Bindings of fact in conformity with these views, and decree disnissing the action may be prepared and submitted. On account of the distance from place of trial at which the attorneys for the parties herein reside, defendants may have sixty days to preoare. serve and file the,r findings, and the plaintiff may have sixty days after serV- ice thereof within which to prepare and hle and proposed amendments and objections.
 Dated at Fairbanks. Alaska, September IS, 1914. r. E. FULLER fDjStrict Judge"