Mohave County miner., 1915-04-17
Who is the PrOspOctOr-----
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dlVldualS seeking to take advantage of this benefcent law, and it is not for them we are pleading when we state that an effective remedy" for most of this litigation has continuously, since 1872, been suggested to Congress by the miners and prospectors themselves, in stalking" what is known as "pro- lection" claim adjacent to the original discovery" claim on the side toward which the vein dips. The trouble has been that this ''protection" claim could not be legally held without the "dis- covery' required by law to initiate the proceeding of ''location." The "pro tection" claims have been commonly recognized and respected by the miners and prospectors themselves; but the moment the original ''find'' appeared of great value, the protection claim was jumped, and through the ground of the protection claim arose all sub sequent litigation.
 The plain duty of Congress is to enact a law authorizing this 'protection" claim to be held for one year without discovery" and if no discovery is made within the year, then the ground to lapse back to the public domain; but if "discovery" is made within the year, then the owner to proceed with his pro- tection claim under the regular law for lode claims.
 The miners and prospectors have no complaint against the Apex law, and no complaint to make against any of the present existing laws of Congress as they affect lode claims and lode min ing; and they earnestly pray that no "revision," amendment, or abrogation of the same be now attempted.
 Our present National Mining Code, in as far as it relates to '1ode claims," is simply digest of the District Rules of Miners" originated in the mining camps of California in 1849, be- fore the establishment of even terri torial government. The miners and prospectors of those days sat in ire quent legislative session, and made their own laws (''district rules'O for the proper and wise conduct of their prospecting and mining operations. These district rules" with local varia- tions, quickly spread over the whole Rocky mountain area, from the Pacific ocean to the present site of Denver, from the Canadian line to the Mexican border, and constituted the Flaw of the land" administered by all courts, even the Supreme Court of the United States. For 23 years the miners and prospectors in the field earnestly strove to perfect these laws for the govern ment of mining and prospecting. The result was the most perfect code of mining laws that the human ingenuity of those actually operating in the field could devise. Everything was tried, and the useless, the poorest, the inef- fective and impracticable were weeded out. On May 10, 1872, the results of their labors and trials---the district rules" were enacted by Congress as the National Mining Code; and for the last 43 years the miners and prospectors of our country have very successfully car ried on their business under that code ---and under that code they have taken the grandest strides in mining ever witnessed on this earth.
 But alas! We have the "patent medicine man" ever with us!
 In the early days of Pinchotism, Pin chot enacted district rule": "Pros- pectors shall not carry guns in the forest reserves!' This was due to his paternal love for the bear, and his sub lime desire to make of the prospector vegetarian!
 If, as now proposed by some, "re- vision" of our present mining code were to be made by a commission" appointed by Secretary Lane, l. e. the 'conservation bureaus" the very first section of that ''revision" would read: "SEC. 1. THE PRosPECToR SHALL Nor
 PROSPECT"
 Vast multitudes of our younger min ing engineers have flooded our mining journals with their dictum as to how