there is valuable building stone on the tract in question is absoultely true, and a prudent man might utilize it for building purposes.  Furthermore, there is a depostit of limestone upon the tract which could be utilized for the making of lime, which is otherwise scarce in the region.  My motive in filing clain in the way I did was to comply with the form of law so far as I was personally concerned.  The motive, however,of  the Director of the Museum for whom I was acting and who had no knowledge of the specific form in which I filed my claim, was to test this matter and obtain, if possible, from the Secretary of the Interior a ruling that fossils such as we have been taking up there are to be classified as minerals.



There is urgent reason that some method should be found by which institutions of learning such as I represent should have it in their power to purchase, or otherwise gain possesion of such tracts.  Past experience has in several cases shown us that after having made discoveries of importance and valuable to science, other parties, learning of this fact have come in and gained possession of the land upon which our discoveries have been made, have purchased land under various claims as grazing tracts or as farm land, and then have turned around and compelled us, after we have expended a large amount of money in developing the territory, to pay tribute to them for permission to carry on the work which we originally began.