approving of a survey of a mining claim by the Surveyorgeneral is merely an indorsement thereon, over his own signature, that the survey is correct, and that it has been made in accordance with law and instructions, and until he has actually affixed his signature approving such survey no appeal lies to this office, as an appeal can not lie from a proposed action or decision.

If, however, a protest is filed against a given survey, you should in all cases transmit the plat and field notes of survey, together with all papers which may have been filed with you in the case, to this office, that such action may be taken as the law and the facts may warrant.

In this connection I would state that the Surveyor-general has no jurisdiction in the matter of deciding the respective rights of parties in cases of conflicting claims.

Each applicant for a survey under the mining act is entitled to a survey of the entire mining claim, as located, if held by him in accordance with the local laws and congressional enactments.

Conflict of surveys to be shown.

If, in running the exterior boundaries of a claim, it is found that two surveys conflict, the plats and field notes should show the extent of the conflict, giving the area which is embraced in both surveys, and also the distances from the established corners at which the exterior boundaries of the respective surveys intersect each other.

If parties desire to protect their interests which would be adversely affected by the issuance of a patent for the claim as surveyed, they must file an adverse claim against such application in the manner and form prescribed by the statute, for in no other way can their alleged adverse rights be adjusted.

In the case under consideration, both surveys having been approved, the respective parties may, upon full compliance with the law and instructions, make application for patents for their claims to the local land officers, in which event it will be necessary for them to proceed in the manner indicated by the law and circular instructions.

You will inform all parties in interest, and acknowledge the receipt hereof. Very respectfully,

S. S. BURDETT, Commissioner.

No. 8. Instructions in regard to the establishment of mineral monuments. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 27, 1880.

WM. P. CHANDLER, United States Surveyor-general, Boise City, Idaho.

SIR: In answer to a letter received from Frank P. Cavanah, United States Deputy Mineral Surveyor, dated February 3, 1880 (copy herewith), asking for instructions with regard to establishing mineral monuments, you will instruct him and other deputies under your control that too much care can not be exercised in making mineral monuments or other reference marks used to fix the locus of mineral claims permanent.

Carelessness in this respect has already caused this office great inconvenience, and claimants even more.

In all cases when it is found necessary to establish a mineral monument, or initial point, no reasonable or practicable precaution should be neglected to render it permanent.

Tree not a permanent natural object.

A tree should not be considered a permanent natural object, and it would not satisfy the requirements of this office as an initial point of a mining claim, even when witnessed by two or more neighboring trees.

A reference of this kind would answer well enough to mark some point upon the lines of the public survey, for in this case, the accuracy of the entire survey does not depend upon the reference, and the lines could at any time be rerun and the point fixed, even though the references had been obliterated.

When an initial point is taken at the confluence of two streams, the instructions should not be undertstood to mean the actual point of intersection of the two currents.

Water's edge.

Neither should the water's edge, at the apex of the angle formed by the intersection of two streams, be taken as a starting point, for it is well known that such a point could not, from the nature of things, be permanent, but would be continually, owing to natural causes, changing its position

by the wearing away of the banks, or a change in the position of the beds of one or both of the intersecting streams. Confluence of two streams.

The term, confluence of two streams, should only be used to define particularly the spot or locality upon which a mineral monument is erected. Such a monument should be placed sufficiently far away from the banks of the streams to protect it from any changes which might take place; and its position should be rendered additionally secure by reference, where such are available, to some natural and permanent objects in the vicinity.

Mineral monuments connected with each other.

Where two or more mineral monuments are established in the same district, they should be accurately connected with each other, either by surface measurement or by triangulation, and where practicable the initial points of adjacent mining districts should be similarly connected.

From time to time, as occasion may require, you should furnish this office with connected diagrams of the mineral claims in all the mining districts under your control, constructed on a scale of not less than one inch to forty chains. When extended, the lines of the public surveys should be shown upon said diagrams.

Very respectfully,

J. A. WILLIAMSON, Commissioner.

No. 9. 1. When not shown to be otherwise, the discovery shaft is assumed, for executive purposes, to be the center of the lode.

2. Lateral measurements can not extend on either side of the lode beyond the limit allowed by the local law.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 23, 1880.

ALBERT JOHNSON, U. S. Surveyor-general, Denver, Colorado. SIR: The plat and field notes of the survey of the claim of George B. Robinson upon the G. B. R. Lode, Lot No. 409, Consolidated Ten Mile Mining District, Summit county, Colorado, are returned here with for amendment.

In Summit county the laws of Colorado limit a locator to seventy-five feet of surface ground on each side of the center of the vein or lode.

Discovery shaft center of lode.

When not shown to be otherwise, the discovery shaft is assumed for executive purposes to be the center of the vein or lode.*

In this case the full width allowed by the law being claimed, the lode must be assumed to lie in the center of the claim midway between the side lines; but the lateral measurements must be made each way from the discovery shaft and in the general direction indicated by the side lines; a line drawn from the discovery point south-easterly, parallel to the side lines, to indicate the center of the lode, shows that the width of surface ground on the south, beginning at corner No. 8, is thirty-five and forty-two hundredths feet in excess of the prescribed limit.

Lateral measurement.

The claimant was not justified, in order to compensate himself for the surface abandoned on account of the conflict with survey No. 369, in adding a similar amount to the opposite side of his location. Lateral measurements can not extend on either side of the vein or lode beyond the limit allowed by the local laws.

You will require an amendment of the survey as indicated, abandoning the surface in excess of seventy-five feet, lying south of a line beginning at corner No. 8, and extending south forty-eight degrees twenty-three minutes east until it intersects the eastern end line of the claim.

Very respectfully,

J. A. WILLIAMSON, Commissioner.

No. 10. The point of the vein developed by the discovery shaft, when further prospecting does not show that the nearest actual surface point is elsewhere, must be assumed to be the middle of the vein.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, D. C., September 28, 1878.

Register and Receiver, Helena, Montana.

GENTLEMEN: I am in receipt of receiver's letter of first ultimo, transmitting mineral application No. 613, made in

* A location of a lode mining claim will be presumed to include the vein upon which the discovery was made, until the contrary appears. Patterson v. Hitchcock, 3 Col.

your office May 21, 1878, by the Hope Mining Company, for the "Potosi Lode," being lot 57, in township 7 north, 13 west, together with protest by James K. Pardee against entry, and asking that the application and survey be canceled.

Mr. Pardee claims and represents no adverse interest, but bases his protest on the following grounds, to wit:

1. That he finds on examination of the certified copy of the location, and of the official plat and field notes of survey, that said claim was located with surface ground largely in excess of the amount allowed by law, and that the plat shows that the claim was surveyed with a width of surface on the north side of about thirty feet in excess of three hundred feet.

2. That from an examination of said notice of location it is evident that said Potosi lode has been floated a distance of about sixty-one feet eastwardly from the position in which it was staked at the time of its original location, no evidence appearing to have been taken that the stake found by the deputy surveyor at the south-east corner was the identical stake originally patented and given in said notice.

3. Affiant believes said notice of location is void for uncertainty, for the reason that no description of the kind or size of the stakes used or the marks placed thereon is given in said notice of location, "for which reason the said claimants, in the absence of proof to the contrary, could call anything that happened to be stuck in the ground their boundary stake."

On said first objection I find that the width on the northerly side of the discovery shaft is about three hundred and thirty feet, and the width on the southerly side. about one hundred and twenty-five feet.

The Surveyor-general, under date of ninth ultimo, informed this office that said survey should not have been approved, for this reason, and that he did not discover the error until the twenty-ninth of July last.

The law (sec. 2320 U. S. Revised Statutes) provides that "no claim shall extend more than three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface."

When the vein outcrops at the surface, there can be no