Year: 1876

try papers seemed to dispose of the oues-
ton would lead one to conclude it small


matter. When we consider the number
OF people on each side, the vast amount
OF money expended in titles and improve
ments, the length of time each has been
IN possession, the right of claiming, own
ing and using waters and beds of streams,
the rights of riparian owners, the common
source Of all our titles, the priority of
some rights and many other questions
that will come up in the case, l think it
will be long before the trouble is disposed
OF, and perhaps never in satisfactory
manner.


The Ger eral Government, in all its
questions in regard to the disposal of min
eral land, has never intimated that the
miners would be disturbed in the rights
to the water and streams in the mines
that the Supreme Court of this State has
always allowed them. Government has
recognized all location and priority rights
of the miner the same as the farmer and
has gone even farther with the miner in
recognizing the bylaws adopted by them
when not in conflict with the general law.
There is 10 doubt that in selling the min
eral land for twice the price of agricul-
tpral, the intention was to give all the
rights and privileges they have had for
qua,ter of century, and that Govern
ment intended to protect him in them, or
the mineral land bill would never have
been passed and the mines sold as has
been and is still being done.


| see nothing about condemnng the
mines and paying for them, and if so,
who is to raise the money. The rest of
the State will most assuredy wish to
foster the only placer mines the United
States possess instead Of condemning
them for the sake of protecting a very
small portion of Sacramento Valley,
while the foundry and machine shops
and many other manufacturing interests
in this State will think the mines much
more valuable, in business point of view,
than the ranches now in danger But as
some of the papers think the whole bur
den lays with the mines, perhaps it is in
tended to tax the mines to raise money
to buy themselves out; or perhaps to
force the miners to leave their houses,
gardens, vineyards, claims and water
bitches, that they have grown gray in
building up, for the sake of protecting
men who, in many eases, are in posses
sion of land which the Government has
never been paid for, and who located their
ranches many years after the mines, ex-
pecting to find a market in these same
mines that they now want closed, and
from which they now receive about all
the cash they get for their produce. The
reply will of course be that there is no
wish to stop the mines. There is not
Mining Engineer or Superintendent in
the State that would risk his reputatian
on one hours thought, in trying to come
to any other conclusion than that the
remedies so far proposed would stop most
of the mines. Even here there is some
complaint about sluicing into Trinity
river. Ii it can be stopped in one place,
it can in another


They speak Of Hydraulic mining as a
recent thing, while we have been using
1t ever SO many years, and there is no
more Improvement in it than in most
other kinds of business. Some States
prevent lumber manufactures from put
ting their refuse into the stream, because
it kills the fish and interferes with navi-
CATION, which are public property but it
was never done by private parties as at
tempted in this case. The navigation of
the upper Sacramento does not amount
to much, for the farmers want to use it
most when there is not water enough for
the purpose, and if the miners are stopped
it will be needed still less. The complaint
is local and private one. The miners
are pelceable and abiding class of
CT .ens, and will without doubt take their
chances in the Courts, but it is with rath-
er bad grace that they should be asked to
do 50 by the Sacramento Record Union,
which in several late numbers distinctly
states tnat that the law and equity is all
on the side OF the farmer, while all the
onus rests with the miner. This places
the miner AS II trespasser and intimates if
they do not comply with the farmers de-
mands they will be made to do so and
must not complain. MAX.


[Our limited space compels US to omit
about onehalf this communication, but
the above suffices to show the views of
our correspondent-an experienced and
intelligent miner.-ED.