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tions or state or territorial laws in force in the several mining districts; and that no such local regulations or state or territorial laws shall limit a vein or lode claim to less than fifteen hundred feet along the course thereof, whether the location is made by one or more persons, nor can surface rights be limited to less than fifty feet in width, unless adverse claims existing on the 10th day of May, 1872, render such lateral limitation necessary. It is provided by the Revised Statutes that the miners of each district may make rules and regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or of the state or territory in which such districts are respectively situated, governing the location, manner of recording, and amount of work necessary to hold possession of a claim. They likewise require that the location shall be so distinctly marked on the ground that its boundaries may be readily traced. This is a very important matter, and locators cannot exercise too much care in defining their locations at the outset, inasmuch as the law requires that all records of mining locations made subsequent to May 10, 1872, shall contain the name or names of the locators, the date of the location, and such a description of the claim or claims located, by reference to some natural object or permanent monument, as will identify the claim. The statutes provide that no lode claim shall be recorded until after the discovery of a vein or lode within the limits of the ground claimed; the object of which provision is evidently to prevent the encumbering of the district mining records with useless locations before sufficient work has been done thereon to determine whether a vein or lode has really been discovered or not. The claimant should, therefore, prior to recording his claim, unless the vein can be traced upon the surface, sink a haft or run a tunnel or drift, to a sufficient depth therein over and develop a mineral-bearing vein, lode, or

crevice; should determine, if possible, the general course of such vein in either direction from the point of discovery, by which direction he will be governed in marking the boundaries of his claim on the surface, and should give the course and distance as nearly as practicable from the discovery shaft on the claim, to some permanent, well known points or objects—such, for instance, as stone monuments, blazed trees, the confluence of streams, point of intersection of well known gulches, ravines, or roads, prominent buttes, hills, etc., which may be in the immediate vicinity, and which will serve to perpetuate and fix the locus of the claim and render it susceptible of identification from the description thereof given in the record of locations in the district. In addition to the foregoing data, the claimant should state the names of adjoining claims, or, if none adjoin, the relative positions of the nearest claims; should drive a post or erect a monument of stones at each corner of his surface ground, and at the point of discovery or discovery shaft, should fix a post, stake, or board, upon which should be designated the name of the lode, the name or names of the locators, the number of feet claimed, and in which direction from the point of discovery; it being essential that the location notice filed for record, in addition to the foregoing description, should state whether the entire claim of fifteen hundred feet is taken on one side of the point of discovery, or whether it is partly upon one and partly upon the other side thereof, and in the latter case, how many feet are claimed upon each side of such discoverypoint. Within a reasonable time, say twenty days after the location shall have been marked on the ground, or such time as is allowed by the local laws, notice thereof, accurately describing the claim in manner aforesaid, should be filed for record with the proper recorder of the district, who will thereupon issue the usual certificate of

location. In order to hold the possessory right to a location made since May 10, 1872, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor must be performed, or improvements made thereon, within one year from the date of such location, and annually thereafter; in default of which the claim will be subject to relocation by any other party having the necessary qualifications, unless the original locator, his heirs, assigns, or legal representatives, have resumed work thereon after such failure and before such relocation. The expenditures required upon mining claims may be made from the surface or in running a tunnel for the development of such claims, the act of February 11, 1875, providing that where a person or company has, or may, run a tunnel for the purpose of developing a lode or lodes owned by said person or company, the money so expended in said tunnel shall be taken and considered as expended on said lode or lodes, and such person or company shall not be required to perform work on the surface of said lode or lodes in order to hold the same. The importance of attending to these details in the matter of location, labor, and expenditure will be the more readily perceived when it is understood that a failure to give the subject proper attention may invalidate the claim.

§ 79. Tunnel rights.—Section 2323 provides that where a tunnel is run for the development of a vein or lode, or for the discovery of mines, the owners of such tunnel shall have the right of possession of all veins or lodes within three thousand feet from the face of such tunnel on the line thereof, not previously known to exist, discovered in such tunnel, to the same extent as if discovered from the surface; and locations on the line of such tunnel of veins or lodes not appearing on the surface, made by other parties after the commencement

of the tunnel, and while the same is being prosecuted with reasonable diligence, shall be invalid; but failure to prosecute the work on the tunnel for six months shall be considered as an abandonment of the right to all undiscovered veins or lodes on the line of said tunnel. The effect of this is simply to give the proprietors of a mining tunnel run in good faith the possessory right to fifteen hundred feet of any blind-lodes cut, discovered, or intersected by such tunnel, which were not previously known to exist, within three thousand feet from the face or point of commencement of such tunnel, and to prohibit other parties, after the commencement of the tunnel, from prospecting for and making locations of lodes on the line thereof, and within said distance of three thousand feet, unless such lodes appear upon the surface or were previously known to exist. The term "face," as used in said section, is construed and held to mean the first working face formed in the tunnel, and to signify the point at which the tunnel actually enters cover, it being from this point that the three thousand feet are to be counted, upon which prospecting is prohibited as aforesaid. To avail themselves of the benefits of this provision of law, the proprietors of a mining tunnel will be required, at the time they enter cover as aforesaid, to give proper notice of their tunnel location, by erecting a substantial post, board or monument at the face or point of commencement thereof, upon which should be posted a good and sufficient notice, giving the names of the parties or company claiming the tunnel right; the actual or proposed course or direction of the tunnel; the height and width thereof, and the course and distance from such face or point of commencement to some permanent well known objects in the vicinity by which to fix and determine the locus in manner heretofore set forth applicable to locations of veins or lodes; and at the time posting such notice they

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