family was left afoot in the land of despair, and nothing remained but await madness and death.

One of the smaller children was missed, and in search of the wanderer Sepulveda walked to the top of a swale into which he had entered to look over the country. Standing upon the summit and outlined against the horizon, the man was seen by a party of miners camped not far away at a spring. And so the Sepulvedas were rescued and guided to Ivanpah, whence they were directed toward Searchlight. Because of the absence of guideposts, they had gone a hundred miles out of their course.

WHY MEN DIE IN THE DESERT.

C. W. Turner, former owner of an oasis known as Indian Creek ranch in Lincoln County, Nev., told me something about Death Valley recently. Mr. Turner is a typical desert dweller, bronzed as an Indian, lean and wiry, tough as hickory, despite his 67 years, and with hair and beard as black as jet. He was born on the Hudson, and came to Nevada overland in 1849. Two or three years ago he sold his ranch and went to Oregon, but it was too wet for him there, and he returned to the desert, whose strange lure no man can resist when once it takes grip on his soul.

We were speaking of the seven prospectors who were found dead in the valley in June, and Turner said: "I have crossed Death Valley often, and at all seasons, and I have learned what it is that kills men there. It is fear. The heat is awful, and when a man faces the burning wind and his eyeballs are seared by the glare of sunlight on the sand he thinks he never will be able to pull through, and blind terror seizes him. I knew one man who killed himself when he still had a canteen full of water. He wrote a note, saying that he preferred sudden death to the delirum that he felt coming on him, and shot himself. It was the terrible heat that frightened him. There are springs in Death Valley, and there is green timber in the mountains around it. One who knows the location of the water holes can get through all right if he does not become panic-stricken and wear himself out in his blind haste to get somewhere. The sink might well be named the Valley of Fear."

Almost without exception, the tragedies of the desert are caused by the lac of guideposts to direct travelers to water.

O

LANDS FOR PUBLIC PARK IN OREGON.

APRIL 1, 1916.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. SINNOTT, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 10305.]

The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 10305) to grant certain lands to the State of Oregon as a public park, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass.

The lands which this bill proposes to grant to the State of Oregon for park purposes only are situated in the northwestern part of the State, in Clatsop County, near the Pacific Ocean. They consist of two peaks of moderate elevation and adjacent lands. The ocean beach from the mouth of the Columbia River south to Tillamook Head, a distance of some 25 miles, is a very popular summer resort section, visited by tens of thousands of people yearly. This park will be readily accessible to them. There are excellent highways from Portland and Astoria to the vicinity of the park. There is good railroad service also. Camping places with abundance of good water are numerous. From the summits of the peaks, snow-clad mountains, rivers, forests, settlements, and the Pacific Ocean extend in endless and beautiful vistas. The park will be within a convenient distance for a half million of people.

The summits of the peaks are open lands generally; on other parts of the lands are woods, but no very valuable timber according to the information furnished to the committee, which will be preserved in their native beauty and protected from depredation and fire.

The lands are to be granted for park purposes only, and if not so used at any time revert to the Government.

The committee offer the following amendments:

On

page 1, line 11, strike out the word "of," and insert the word "of" between the words "half" and "section."

On page 2 add a new section:

"SEC. 2. That there shall be excepted from the grant hereby made, any lands which at the date of the approval of this act shall be covered by a valid, existing bona fide right or claim initiated under the laws of the United States: Provided, That this exception shall not continue to apply to any particular tract of land unless the claimant continues to comply with the law under which the claim or right was initiated."

This amendment is proposed in accordance with a suggestion made by the Department of the Interior in a report on the bill, which report is printed as part of this report.

The Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon, by joint memorial, adopted at its session in 1913, memorialized Congress for the establishment of a park here.

The bill as amended will read as follows:

|H. R. 10305, Sixty-third Congress, first session.

A Bill To grant certain lands to the State of Oregon as a public park, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all those certain tracts, pieces, or parcels of land lying and being situate in the State of Oregon and within the boundaries particularly described as follows, to wit: The south half and the northeast quarter of section seven, and the west half and the southeast quarter of section eight, and the southwest quarter of section nine, in township five north, range eight west of the Willamette meridian; and the southwest quarter of section twenty-seven, and the southeast quarter and west half of section twenty-eight, and the north half of section thirty-three, and the northwest quarter of section thirty-four, and the northeast quarter and the southeast quarter of section twenty-nine, in township six north, range eight west of the Willamette meridian, are hereby granted to the State of Oregon as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people: Provided, That the patent to be issued for said lands shall contain the provision that the land shall revert to the United States whenever it shall not be used for the purposes mentioned in this act: Provided further, That the Government of the United States of America reserves the right to operate and maintain any telegraph or telephone line over and upon said land which is in operation at the passage of this act, or which it may see fit to establish thereafter.

SEC. 2. That there shall be excepted from the grant hereby made any lands which at the date of the approval of this act shall be covered by a valid, existing, bona fide right or claim initiated under the laws of the United States: Provided, That this exception shall not continue to apply to any particular tract of land unless the claimant continues to comply with the law under which the claim or right was initiated.

Hon. SCOTT FERRIS,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, March 27, 1916.

Chairman Committee on the Public Lands, House of Representatives.

MY DEAR MR. FERRIS: I am in receipt of your request of March 20, 1916, for a report on H. R. 10305, a bill to grant certain lands to the State of Oregon for a public park, and in response I have the honor to submit the following:

The land described in the bill contains 2,574.39 acres, of which 162.40 acres are claimed under a homestead entry, and 160 acres have been patented on a timber-andstone entry, and 1,450.03 acres are claimed as lieu selections under the act of July 1, 1898 (30 Stat., 597, 620), leaving unclaimed 801.96 acres. Except in the case of the homestead and timber-and-stone entries, action on the claims has been suspended pending said legislation.

Senate bill 7372, Sixtieth Congress, was introduced to withdraw said lands, together with other lands, for a park to be known as Saddle Mountain National Park. At that

time the land was unsurveyed and embraced Humbug Mountain, in township 5, and Saddle Mountain, in township 6 N., R. 8 W. The matter has since been before Congress until the session of the Sixty-third Congress, when Senate bill 531, introduced for the purpose of creating such national park, was so amended as to constitute a grant to the State of Oregon, for park purposes, of the land embraced in the bill under consideration.

In order to protect all persons having valid claims to the land proposed to be granted to the State by the bill, I recommend that it be amended by inserting a clause to read as follows:

"That there shall be excepted from the grant hereby made any lands which at the date of the approval of this act shall be covered by a valid, existing bona fide right or claim initiated under the laws of the United States: Provided, That this exception shall not continue to apply to any particular tract of land unless the claimant continues to comply with the law under which the claim or right was initiated." When so amended I see no objection to the enactment of the proposed legislation. Cordially, yours, ANDRIEUS A. JONES, Acting Secretary.