my work the permission kindly given  by the Department of the Interior, to search for fossils in Uinta County.  There was no thought on my part in making this calim to secure the property for myself personally, but I was proceeding under the instructions of the Director of the Carnegie Museum, who desired ot make a test case in this instance for the purpose of as certaining whether a ruling could not be had from the Secretary of the Interior declaring that petrified or mineralized bones are minerals.  The fact that the mineral substance perservesw the forms of dead animals has been by the Director claimed as in his judgement not militating (if the matter is considered in its true light) against regarding the substance as mineral.  Coal is fossil vegetable matter, but no one will dispute that coal is a mineral.  The bones that we have been extratcting from this quarry are fossil matter from hwich all of the animal substance has been removed and has been replaced by silicon or lime, which no one will dispute are minerals.  At the instance, therefore, of the Director of the Carnegie Museum I made this claim taking all the necessary steps, and I desire, therefore, still acting under the instructions of the Director  of the Carnegie Museum, to amicably appeal from your decision and to request that this claim be allowed.  My motive for inserting "building stone as found on the spot", was to conform to the language of the law, and, acting under the advice of the attorney whom I retained in the premises, I filed my claim in the form in which it came before you.  The statement that