I surmise, however, that the question of patenting the land took you to Washington to see Secretary Lane and that it ended by requesting the president to proclaim it a National Monument. If so I feel that our interests are safe.

 I see another possibility; that it may have come from Utah with a design to shut us out here. I know that for a long time some have wished to retain the material, or part of the material, here, and to get a skeleton for the state museum. Yet this idea seems idle as there surely is not influence enough in the state to shut us off so quickly without a chance to do anything for ourselves.

Of course the material would not do anyone any good buried in the rock in that hill. If the report is true I would judge that they would permit us, at least, to finish working out the skeletons of which we have parts; but eventually,