New rules for hunting meteorites Options

[Woody]

Looks like the Feds are stepping up and placing restrictions on collecting meteorites. I recognize the interest and benefit science might have but the way I interpret this means more regulations placed on our public lands and activities. This might be a bit of a rant on my part but I hate all these rules and regulations on our public lands. I am reminded about the last time I was in the California N.F. I wanted to spend a couple of days in the back country camping. I found out that I needed a permit in order to even have a campfire. Here is another extreme, I was in Germany a few years ago and got an annual fishing license. It cost about 100$. However, if you actually wanted to use it you had to go down to the county court house before the last business day, and pay an additional cost for each and every day you planned on fishing. It was about 10$ extra per day.

This kind of suggest the same thing, you can’t go out hunting meteorites unless you buy a permit.



http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/15/...intcmp=features

[Gene Kooper]

Clay,

I don't know the basis for your declaration that D.M. Barringer was the pre-eminent mining attorney in the U.S. Yes, he wrote a book with John Stokes Adams on the law of mines, but he certainly wasn't the first, that being Gregory Yale in 1867 that mainly dealt with the 1866 mining law and early California mining law. Period to Barringer and Adams were Curtis Lindley (California attorney) who published three editions from 1897 through 1914. The third edition is in three volumes. He is the one most commonly cited that I'm familiar with. Wilson Snyder published his treatise in 1902 (Utah). In the 1870s and 1880s there were Blanchard and Weeks, W.P. Wade and D.K. Sickels.

As for Colorado, the 15 editions of horn books on mining rights by R.S. Morrison are excellent how-to books for miners. He also published a mining law digest and 22 volumes of court cases related to mining law in his "Mining Reporter" series. Others published less expansivie texts in the 1900s; those being Charles Shamel (mining and geological law), Theodore Martin, Herbert McFarren, G.W. Miller, A.H. Ricketts and George Costigan. As for general how-to books, Henry N. Copp was a prolific writer. He was a former clerk with the GLO in D.C. and set up an office around the corner. He grabbed every Commissioner's decision, circular, instruction, etc. that came out of the Land Office and placed the information in a monthly, then bi-weekly subscription publication called "Copp's Land Owner". He wrote several books for miners, prospectors, settlers, etc. each with multiple editions.

Mr. Barringer was a geologist (also called himself a mining engineer) and attorney. The fact that he staked Meteor Crater as both placers and lodes indicates to me a belt and suspenders approach. While he was certainly able to present his opinion to the General Land Office as to whether "locatable minerals" from meteor impacts should be regarded as placer deposits over lodes, that didn't mean that the GLO had to agree with him. In the end, it didn't matter what Barringer thought, it is what the Land Office regarded them as being. I'm sure he wanted to avoid having his claims ruled as void which is why he went to the extra expense of staking the area as both lodes and placers.

One would think that obtaining a patent is the end of the story. Not necessarily so. In the early 1870s the east side of Mt. Bross was staked as lode claims. When the Land Office found out that the lead-silver carbonate ores were not in veins they forced the miners to restake them as placers. The Land Office classified them as "amygdaloidal bands" and equivalent to the German Fahlbands. Two placer claims were patented. When the third placer was being reviewed prior to issuance of a patent, the Land Office reversed their prior decision and refused to issue a patent because the placer was above 13,500 ft. The other two placer patents were rescinded and the miners scrambled to restake the area again as lodes. The area has some very oddly shaped lode claims in the vicinity of the Dolly Varden Mine. One lode claim has a single end line. The two side lines come to a point at the other end. The Land Office in 1878 said that was fine as long as the lode went through the vertex. The Compromise Lode looks like an eyebrow. Many of the lode claims do not have parallel end lines. Lode claims in the vicinity of the Moose mine look like paper clips. This is all because there are no veins. The deposit is contained within the Leadville Limestone as irregular shaped and oriented "spuds". Harvey Gardner, a retired historian at CU wrote a very interesting book entitled, "Mining among the Clouds: The Mosquito Range and the Origins of Colorado's Silver Boom", 2002. It is a paperback available at Amazon for $14.95. The above story is covered in detail in Mr. Gardner's book. He did some good research and obtained the Land Entry Case files for many of the claims on Bross from the National Archives.

[Clay Diggins]

Clay,

I don't know the basis for your declaration that D.M. Barringer was the pre-eminent mining attorney in the U.S. Yes, he wrote a book with John Stokes Adams on the law of mines, but he certainly wasn't the first, that being Gregory Yale in 1867 that mainly dealt with the 1866 mining law and early California mining law. Period to Barringer and Adams were Curtis Lindley (California attorney) who published three editions from 1897 through 1914. The third edition is in three volumes. He is the one most commonly cited that I'm familiar with. Wilson Snyder published his treatise in 1902 (Utah). In the 1870s and 1880s there were Blanchard and Weeks, W.P. Wade and D.K. Sickels.

As for Colorado, the 15 editions of horn books on mining rights by R.S. Morrison are excellent how-to books for miners. He also published a mining law digest and 22 volumes of court cases related to mining law in his "Mining Reporter" series. Others published less expansivie texts in the 1900s; those being Charles Shamel (mining and geological law), Theodore Martin, Herbert McFarren, G.W. Miller, A.H. Ricketts and George Costigan. As for general how-to books, Henry N. Copp was a prolific writer. He was a former clerk with the GLO in D.C. and set up an office around the corner. He grabbed every Commissioner's decision, circular, instruction, etc. that came out of the Land Office and placed the information in a monthly, then bi-weekly subscription publication called "Copp's Land Owner". He wrote several books for miners, prospectors, settlers, etc. each with multiple editions.

Mr. Barringer was a geologist (also called himself a mining engineer) and attorney. The fact that he staked Meteor Crater as both placers and lodes indicates to me a belt and suspenders approach. While he was certainly able to present his opinion to the General Land Office as to whether "locatable minerals" from meteor impacts should be regarded as placer deposits over lodes, that didn't mean that the GLO had to agree with him. In the end, it didn't matter what Barringer thought, it is what the Land Office regarded them as being. I'm sure he wanted to avoid having his claims ruled as void which is why he went to the extra expense of staking the area as both lodes and placers.

One would think that obtaining a patent is the end of the story. Not necessarily so. In the early 1870s the east side of Mt. Bross was staked as lode claims. When the Land Office found out that the lead-silver carbonate ores were not in veins they forced the miners to restake them as placers. The Land Office classified them as "amygdaloidal bands" and equivalent to the German Fahlbands. Two placer claims were patented. When the third placer was being reviewed prior to issuance of a patent, the Land Office reversed their prior decision and refused to issue a patent because the placer was above 13,500 ft. The other two placer patents were rescinded and the miners scrambled to restake the area again as lodes. The area has some very oddly shaped lode claims in the vicinity of the Dolly Varden Mine. One lode claim has a single end line. The two side lines come to a point at the other end. The Land Office in 1878 said that was fine as long as the lode went through the vertex. The Compromise Lode looks like an eyebrow. Many of the lode claims do not have parallel end lines. Lode claims in the vicinity of the Moose mine look like paper clips. This is all because there are no veins. The deposit is contained within the Leadville Limestone as irregular shaped and oriented "spuds". Harvey Gardner, a retired historian at CU wrote a very interesting book entitled, "Mining among the Clouds: The Mosquito Range and the Origins of Colorado's Silver Boom", 2002. It is a paperback available at Amazon for $14.95. The above story is covered in detail in Mr. Gardner's book. He did some good research and obtained the Land Entry Case files for many of the claims on Bross from the National Archives.

I didn't make the determination that Berringer was the "pre-eminent mining attorney in the U.S" at the time. Heck I wasn't even born yet.
Berringer was an acknowledged expert in claim status. There were quite a few people at the time who thought that was the case including Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Both Roosevelt and Wilson knew Lindley and admired his work but they both publicly lauded Berringer's preeminence in the field. Berringer, Lindley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson all ran in the same circles at the time. Lindley was a public speaker and local judge and Berringer was an active mining engineer, and mining lawyer. It's not surprising that Berringer's personal accomplishments would gain him a bit more respect in the industry at a time when actual real world experience and success still mattered.

The fact that Lindley wrote a fine book that was published the same year as Berringers didn't qualify him as an expert on placers and lodes. Berringer actually was a geologist (Harvard and University of Virginia) and lawyer (Princeton and University of Pennsylvania) and owned and operated some of the most successful mines in American history. Berringer thrived in the Tombstone claims quagmire and succeeded in winning his claims where many other famous lawyers had failed. His success made him a wealthy mine owner and well known for his legal ability. Lindley never graduated law school and he took a correspondence course to learn mine engineering. Lindley did eventually receive an honorary Jurisprudence degree from Stanford before his death and his student Herbert Hoover arranged for him to serve as legal counsel in the U.S. Food Department in his last year of life. Both authors had their strong points.

Whether we prefer Lindley's book or Barringer's book today matters little. Everyone has an opinion and I'm sure yours is as highly valued in your realm as mine is where I practice my profession. We aren't required to respect the opinions of the time of Berringers publications but the public statements from those in power at the time favor Berringer. I find Barringers book more readable and better organized yet Lindley's book also covers mining law history and international mining law more completely. They are both very useful books even today. I actually prefer the writing in either work to Terry Maley's more recent efforts. So much for my opinion.

The IBLA was the 1970 successor "fix" for the long list of problems with the DOI handling the administrative appeals to their own decisions in their function as the General Land Office and later as the BLM. I'm not sure your comments about the General Land Office reversing themselves several times on patent and claim status doesn't go more to the previous point I made about perversity in the Land Office/IBLA decision process than it does in addressing Berringer's intentions in making lode claims over placers.

Here is Section 11 of the 1872 Mining Act to further illustrate Brandon's comment about the lodes being for "safety's sake".

That where the same person, association, or corporation is in possession of a placer-claim, and also a vein or lode included within the boundaries thereof; application shall be made for a patent for the placer or lode claim, with the statement that it includes such vein or lode, and in such case (subject to the provisions of this act and the act entitled "An act to amend an act granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the public lands, and for other purposes," approved July eighteen hundred and seventy) a patent shall issue for the placer-claim, including such vein or lode, upon the payment of five dollars per acre for such vein or lode claim, and twenty-five feet of surface on each side thereof. The remainder of the placer-claim, or any placer-claim not embracing any vein or lode claim, shall be paid for at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents per acre, together with all costs of proceedings; and where a vein or lode, such as is described in the second section of this act, is known to exist within the boundaries of a placer-claim, all application for a patent for such placer-claim which does not include an application for the vein or lode claim shall be construed as a conclusive declaration that the claimant of the placer-claim has no right of possession but where the existence of a vein or lode in a placer-claim is not known, a patent for the placer-claim shall convey all valuable mineral and other deposits within the boundaries thereof.

I hope that helps clarify my previous post.