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.

[Gene Kooper]

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.

First, it's Barringer not Berringer. Second, if you are going to make bald assertions regarding Mr. Barringer such as, "[c]learly he was the leading expert on the differences between lode and placer claims" then providing some references would be appropriate. As for that assertion, I've never heard anyone anointing themself as an expert in determining whether a deposit is a placer or lode (let alone be THE expert). It is a fairly straightforward process and if there is some ambiguity classifying the deposit then staking the deposit as both placer and lodes is a simple fix until the GLO/BLM makes their determination. The only thing regarding lodes and placers that I see much case law on is the issue of lodes within placers, esp. what constitutes a "known" lode. Maybe you can point to some cases that deal just with the determination of whether an ore deposit should be staked as a placer or lode, esp. any where Mr. Barringer represented the winning party. It would also be nice to include some references where the Presidential names you dropped actually are quoted as acknowledging Mr. Barringer to be THE expert in lode vs. placer claims. I would also enjoy seeing any SCOTUS decisions where Barringer's treatise is quoted. "Lindley on Mines" has been cited in many SCOTUS decisions (see Colby's articles on Curtis Holbrook Lindley that are attached below).

Your comparison of Lindley and Barringer and your determination that an Ivy League educated man is apparently superior to others doesn't hold water either. I am reminded of the opposing views of John Muir and Josiah Whitney the California State Geologist with regard to whether Yosemite was carved by glaciers or created by some other process. Mr. (or should I use Dr. since he was a professor of geology at Harvard) Whitney was very smug about Muir's lack of formal education in the geological sciences. Muir, however walked Yosemite and made the field observations. Muir did the science while Dr. Whitney pontificated from his office. In the end Muir was proved right and the highly educated State Geologist was dead wrong. Mr. Barringer nearly lost his entire fortune investing in Meteor Crater just before his death. He may have figured out that it was an meteor impact, but he was wrong by nearly two orders of magnitude on the size of the deposit and the fact that most of it likely vaporized upon impact. From Wikipedia:

The mining of the crater continued until 1929 without ever finding the ten-million ton meteorite that Barringer assumed must be hidden. At this time the astronomer Forest Ray Moulton performed calculations on the energy expended by the meteorite on impact, and concluded that the meteorite had most likely vaporized when it landed. By this point Barringer had spent over $600,000 in mining the crater, nearly bankrupting him, with no iron profits to show for it.

Barringer died of a heart attack on November 30, 1929, shortly after reading the very persuasive arguments that no iron was to be found. He was survived by his wife, Margaret Bennett, and eight children, who, with their descendants, formed the Barringer Crater Company, which owns the site to this day.

Educational credentials alone are meaningless. I have degrees in geological engineering and hydrogeology from Colorado School of Mines; so what. I suppose I could think that since I'm a Professional Geologist in Colorado that my opinion of lodes vs. placers should hold extra weight. Mr. Lindley's father was a lawyer in the old California mining camps. Some might assert that being raised in that environment was a far better education on mining law than merely graduating from Penn. I attached a couple of articles on Judge Lindley written by William Colby that were published in the California Law Review. Mr. Colby (along with Mr. Lindley) was a recognized expert in extralateral rights. He wrote a series of articles in 1916-1917 on the topic for the California Law Review, a reprint of which is included in, "The Extralateral Right - Shall it be Abolished?", 1918.

[attachment=10036:Curtis_H..._Lindley.pdf]
[attachment=10037:Mining_L...nt_Years.pdf]

I also cannot fathom your contention of the perversity of IBLA decisions. The IBLA handles administrative appeals of BLM decisions. Before a party can bring suit in a federal district court, they must exhaust their administrative appeals. In other words, they must file a protest and appeal to the IBLA first if they disagree with a BLM decision. The IBLA is primarily concerned with whether the BLM adhered to all of the guidelines, instructions, policies, processes, etc. If they did everything according to the book, then the IBLA invariably supports the BLM decision. On rare occasion they modify the rules, so to speak. For example, in the past the BLM had the legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt regarding boundary evidence to support their decisions. The IBLA relaxed that standard to substantial evidence. The IBLA then defined substantial evidence as more than a scintilla, but less than a preponderance of the evidence. If you want to assert your personal opinion as being correct, it would be nice if you would cite examples of IBLA decisions that you regard as perverse. A few years ago I completed the BLM's Certified Federal Surveyor training program. The training takes approx. 220 hours to complete and is geared towards training private surveyors in the "ways of the BLM". I read and studied over 40 IBLA cases and I would not classify one of them as being a perversion. Your mileage is obviously different. Care to illustrate your position?

You failed to notice in my last post that I did not hold up one legal treatise as being superior to the rest. I have originals of all but W.P. Wade's book. From my perspective, it is imperative to keep an open mind and critically read and evaluate those texts before coming to any conclusion. I am a land surveyor not an attorney. I am tasked with applying the law not interpreting it. I often look for what has been done in the past and for examples of how a law or regulation was applied, not what I believe to be true after lawyerly parsing the text of the law. As far as I know, I've not represented myself as an expert on mining law on this forum, but rather I have shared some of my research and perspective on how I deal with the oddities of mining law as it relates to my retracements/dependent resurveys of mineral surveys. I am regarded by the State of Colorado as competent to practice land surveying. I don't know you other than by your forum nickname Clay, so please pardon me if you feel offended when I challenge you to support your opinions. I also don't know what your research interests are or whether you are held in high esteem in your profession as you stated above. All I go by is your posts here and you seem to at times cavalierly bandy about your opinions as fact (usually without any cites).

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


I hope that helps clarify my previous post.

Your quote of Section 11 of the 1872 Mining Act does nothing to support your premise. Section 11 does not support "Brandon's comment about the lodes being for 'safety's sake.'" I discussed in my previous post that Daniel Barringer approached the staking of Meteor Crater in a belt and suspenders way. As I stated, this was most likely because he was not certain how the General Land Office would rule and wanted to guarantee his right to develop the ore deposit regardless of whether it was determined to be a placer deposit or lode deposit by the GLO.

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks for sharing your opinion Gene.

I see it as perfectly acceptable to prefer one author's writing to another's. I'm glad you feel free to express your opinion on the same subject. I'm not sure we disagree in our opinions?

I did know those things about Lindley and his father and I appreciate you sharing them on the forum. As I wrote he authored a fine book. I'm glad to read that the courts have given his writing recognition.

As far as source material that led me to make the statement that Barringer was an acknowledged expert on mining law and claim status at the time I've included some study material below:

If you want to read some of Roosevelt's writings from the time Harvard has a very nice collection. I'm sure you will find quite a bit of information about Barringer since they were long time friends and co-founders of the Boone and Crockett Club. Barringer also wrote some popular articles about his hunting and exploring adventures for the Club magazine as well as his books on geology and mining law. I found several interesting documents in the Federal Repository of the Skeen Library on the campus of the New Mexico School of Mines. A wonderful mining collection there, you should visit if you get the chance. There is also a Federal Repository in Denver but I don't know the extent of their mining collection - they may have some of the same material there also.

As for Woodrow Wilson I imagine some of his correspondence with Barringer might be found in the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. You will find they corresponded regularly throughout their adult lives. Wilson and Barringer were classmates at Princeton and lifelong friends but Barringer was also a personal adviser on mining and geological matters to Wilson. You will find a nice tribute by Woodrow Wilson to Barringer's legal ability at the Duke University collection also.

You will find quite a bit of information on Barringer and his working relationships at the Barringer collection at Princeton University Library. There are nearly 40 cubic feet of records there so plan on spending a little time rummaging through that pile. You might find some of the information on Barringer's reputation useful at the Biographical Directory of Congress - Research Collections

With a little deeper research you will find that Barringer advised Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, Dr. George Bird Grinnell, Owen Wister and Aldo Leopold on the legal aspects of the creations of National Parks, Wilderness, Wildlife Refuges and the National Forests as they related to mining rights and land status. He was at the center of that land status revolution.

Barringer's father was a U.S. Congressman, Ambassador to Spain and respected lawyer who advised Zachery Taylor on the status of the gold mines in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, N.C as well as being his advisor on Cabinet positions. He became friends with Abe Lincoln and Robert E. Lee early on in his career and his son grew up with those famous individuals and many others as household visitors and travel companions in his early youth.

It's true that Barringer graduated from several Ivy league schools, beginning with his admission to Princeton at the age of 15. All eight of his children graduated from Princeton also. He obviously was passionate about education but he was also an accomplished surveyor and geologist who got a very practical education in the field performing PLSS ground surveys in Arkansas and geologic and mine engineering consulting in several mines around the world. Of course his multiple mining successes speak to some aspects of his abilities as well.

Was Barringer "better" than Lindley? I really don't have an opinion that would matter a hill of beans to anyone. Was Barringer the most respected and knowledgeable mining lawyer of his time? I imagine that would be more about who you asked. If you asked the most influential and powerful leaders in America during the period under discussion I think you will find that they said yes in print and in their actions during that dynamic time in mining and land status law.

Thanks again for sharing. I hope you find those references enlightening.