The School Land That Was Salted With Gold

Washington City, May 16.—Special.—Attorney General Jones this afternoon appeared before Secretary Hoke Smith to make his argument to set aside the ruling of the land office at Olympia in the case of the State of Washington vs. John G. McBride, otherwise the famous case of School Section 16, in Pierce County.

The attorney general said: 'The idea of claiming that the land in question was mineral is preposterous, as the deposit on the whole section is nothing but glacial drift, and there is no case on record where a glacial deposit has contained gold in paying quantities. The state has been to great expense to have the gravel on this section thoroughly worked to see whether gold in paying quantities could be found, and the evidence of the experts is that where undisturbed the gravel will only run at the rate of one-fifth of a cent to the cubic yard. While the samples introduced by the defendant run at a more valuable rate, the experts have found that the gold taken from them has been foreign to the soil; that is, the gravel was salted, and that to a great extent. All of the samples introduced are untrustworthy, as was shown at the hearing in Olympia. If the secretary will take the trouble to examine the evidence he will find that the experts found in some of the samples introduced by the defendant jeweler's gold; that is, they discovered a piece of amalgam. The state made borings all over the section, and the panning of the gravel was made the foundation for reports giving the amount of gold colors. Comparing these reports with the samples of the defendant, none of them agree in any respect, all of which goes to prove beyond doubt that the land was salted.'

In conclusion, Mr. Jones said the state's exploration was full and complete, and it demonstrated that the claimant's former testimony was unreliable and that his theory of the horizontal stratification and richness of the lower level was without foundation. Judge Holcomb and counsel for the claimant denied the statements and claimed there was no evidence that the gold in the samples was foreign to the borings or introduced by salting. Secretary Smith took the matter under consideration and is expected to decide before the last of the month.