November 30, 1915



My Dear Douglass;-



Your telegram and a copy of the decision of the Commissioner, mailed from the Land Office at Vernal, Utah, have been received this morning.  Unfortunately I am not very well - in fact am very unfit - or I would endeavor to go at once to Washington and bring some influence to bear in the premises.  Meanwhile I can only say that I think there has been some underhanded work going on - though in this surmise I may be mistaken.  The Carnegie Museum never requested that that hole in the ground which we have made should be set aside as a national monument.  In your early correspondence about the matter you informed me that the men in the Land Office at Vernal has suggested that that ought to be done.  If he has undertakend to act as the representative of the Carnegie Museum in the premises he has simply transcended his rights and authority.  However, I suppose it is too late now to raise a "kick".  When we undertook to gather fossils and study deposits in the Utah region we were fortified with a permit form the Secretary fo the Interior to do so, giving us the right to go upon the Indian Reservations and make such collections.  I trust that you have preserved that permit among your papers.  I entrusted it to you to keep and you will preserve it, and say nothing about it until I perhaps shall have occasion to call for it.