George Julian: “I got through with the work better than I anticipated, was handsomely listened to, and went home in triumph.”

It is not a mistake merely, but a great misfortune, that our laws touching so delicate and vital a question as the ownership and transfer of mineral lands were not so framed as to avert these frightful evils.

They seemed totally unconscious of the fact that human nature is essentially the same in all parties, and that a mere change of men without any change of system would be fruitless.

Such a state of affairs is worse than pestilence or famine; but the evil of uncertain titles puts on new and very aggravated forms in our gold-bearing regions.

They cripple a great national industry and source of wealth, and insult the principles of American jurisprudence.