hed upon the public. There were two other lawyers
at Council, but no other surveyors. It became at once necessary to
examine the mining records and learn the system, if any, of indexing,
with reference to searching titles; and it was in this connection that
we met Mrs. A----, the duly-elected recorder for the El Dorado mining
district, which district is thirty miles square. The wife of the agent
there of one of the large companies doing business in Alaska, she had
come with her husband to Council a year before; had spent the long
winter there; and, commanding the respect and admiration of the mining
community, had been elected recorder to straighten out and keep honest
records in the books, which hitherto had been in the custody of some
rather suspicious predecessors. Young and good-looking, her face was
both refined and strong. Some of Bret Harte's characters were suggested.
With great labor and intelligence she had brought order out of chaos,
and had so indexed her books with reference to creeks and individuals as
to render the work of the searcher comparatively simple.

A few words concerning mining law as applied to Alaska seem now
appropriate. The United States laws, which control, permit an individual
to "locate" and hold as many tracts or parcels of ground as he desires,
each not exceeding, however, twenty acres in area, _provided_, first,
that there be a bona-fide discovery of gold; second, that the ground be
properly staked or marked out; third, that at least one hundred dollars'
worth of work be done on each claim every year. It is further provided
that the miners may organize a district, elect their own recorder, and
make rules and regulations which shall have the force of law in so far
as they are reasonable and not in conflict with the federal statutes.
Many perplexing questions arise, however. Our laws are too liberal and
loose, leaving open too wide the door to fraud and blackmail, such as
exist galore in Alaska, and which could not be practised under the
carefully drawn Canadian statutes. For instance, though the law requires
that a claim shall be distinctly marked or staked, there is no provision
made as to how it shall be marked, nor is it made obligatory that the
stakes shall be maintained. The fraud and confusion arising from this
situation are aggravated in this barren country, where timber is very
scarce, and the original stakes, for the most part, are made from the
inadequate scrub willow found alo