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[CIRCULAR.]

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
GENERAL LAND OFFICE,
Washington, D. C., June 30, 1897.

1. Under the authority vested in the Secretary of the Interior by the act of Congress, approved June 4, 1897, entitled “An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and for other purposes,” to make such rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure the objects for which forest reservations are created under section 24 of the act of March 3, 1891. (26 Stats., 1095), the following rules and regulations are hereby prescribed and promulgated:

OBJECT OF FOREST RESERVATION.

2. Public forest reservations are established to protect and improve the forests for the purpose of securing a permanent supply of timber for the people and insuring conditions favorable to continuous water flow.

3. It is the intention to exclude from these reservations, as far as possible, lands that are more valuable for the mineral therein, or for agriculture, than for forest purposes; and where such lands are embraced within the boundaries of a reservation, they may be restored to settlement, location, and entry.

PENALTIES FOR VIOLATION OF LAW AND REGULATIONS.

4. The law under which these regulations are made provides that any violation of the provisions thereof, or of any rules and regulations thereunder, shall be punished as is provided for in the act of June 4,1888 (25 Stats, 166), amending section 5388 of the Revised Statutes, which reads as follows:

That section fifty-three hundred and eighty-eight of the Revised Statutes of the United States be amended so as to read as follows: “Every person who unlawfully cuts, or aids or is employed in unlawfully cutting, or wantonly destroys or procures to be wantonly destroyed, any timber standing upon the land of the United States which, in pursuance of law, may be reserved or purchased for military or other purposes, or upon any Indian reservation, or lands belonging to or occupied by any tribe of Indians under authority of the United States, shall pay a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or be imprisoned not more than twelve months, or both, in the discretion of the court.”

This provision is additional to the penalties now existing in respect to punishment for depredations on the public timber. The Government has also all the common-law civil remedies, whether for the prevention redress of injuries which individuals possess.

5. The act of February 24, 1897 (29 Stats., 594), entitled “An act to prevent forest fires on the public domain,” provides:

That any person who shall wilfully or maliciously set on fire, or cause to be set on fire, any timber, underbrush, or grass upon the public domain, or shall carelessly or negligently leave or suffer fire to burn unattended near any timber or other inflammable material, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the same, shall be fined in a sum not more than five thousand dollars or be imprisoned for a term of not more than two years, or both.

SEC. 2. That any person who shall build a camp fire, or other fire, in or near any forest, timber, or other inflammable material upon the public domain, shall, before breaking camp or leaving said fire, totally extinguish the same. Any person failing to do so shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the same, shall be fined in a sum not more than one thousand dollars, or be imprisoned for a term of not more than one year, or both.

SEC. 3. That in all cases arising under this act the fines collected shall be paid into the public-school fund of the county in which the lands where the offense was committed are situate.

Large areas of the public forests are annually destroyed by fire, originating in many instances through the carelessness of prospectors, campers, hunters, sheep herders, and others, while in some cases the fires are started with malicious intent. So great is the importance of protecting forests from fire, that this Department will make special effort for the enforcement of the law against all persons guilty of starting or causing the spread of forest fires in the reservations in violation of the above provisions.

6. The law of June 4, 1897, for forest reserve regulations, also provides that—

The jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, over persons within such reservations shall not be affected or changed by reason of the existence of such reservations, except so far as the punishment of offenses against the United States therein is concerned; the intent and meaning of this provision being that the State wherein any such reservation is situated shall not, by reason of the establishment thereof, lose its jurisdiction, nor the inhabitants thereof their rights and privileges as citizens, or be absolved from their duties as citizens of the State.