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the Burrell claim could not conflict with the Morse claim without the Morse claim at the same time conflicting with the Burrell. Under such circumstances, how can you suspend the application for the Ajax lode and forward that of the Burrell fode to this office for patent?

You will please explain fully.

Very respectfully, etc.,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

Local Laws govern Purchase of other parties' Locations. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, November 6, 1869.

THOMAS LYTLE, Esq., Treasure City, Nevada:

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SIR: Referring to the subject of your letter of the twentythird of September last, in which you inquire if ten men can locate 200 feet each on a ledge, one or two of them buy out all the rest, and then apply and secure a patent for all the ground, by showing title by deeds." I reply * the only question for consideration is, whether it would be sanctioned by the mining regulations of Nevada. If a purchase, made in the manner you suggest, is good under the mining regulations of Nevada, it is good in the General Land Office, provided the one thousand dollars expenditure has been made upon it as required by the mining act.

Very respectfully, etc.,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

How an Adverse Claimant may Protect his Rights. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, November 17, 1869. Register and Receiver U. S. Land Office, Central City, Cal:

GENTLEMEN: In the case of the application of Christopher C. Miller and others for patent on the Mountain City lode, and the counter application of Tierney and others for sending it to the local courts for the adjustment of their adverse claim, this office decides, that the case having been once suspended and carried to the courts for such adjudication on the application of Tierney & Co., and having been there dismissed for want of attention and prosecution on the part of said adverse claimants, cannot be stayed a second time for such purpose, but must now proceed upon the application for patent. The adverse claimants, having enjoyed the privileges accorded them by the statute, and having had their day in court, have but themselves to blame for what

ever of inconvenience may result from their neglect to attend to their own interests.

It is not shown that they labored under any disability to prosecute on account of being in the quiet and peaceable possession of the property claimed; for, in the first place, there is no satisfactory evidence that the Mountain City and Tierney lodes are identical; and, in the second place, if they were identical, there is abundant evidence that Miller and others occupy and have occupied a portion of it; have made a location of it under the mining laws of Colorado, sunk shafts and performed other work upon it; and if these acts of ownership and possession do not lay a foundation for ejectment, it is difficult to tell what would.

Even if an ejectment had been impracticable, which it was not, there could have been no difficulty in proceeding in equity, either by a bill to quiet title, or an injunction to restrain Miller & Co. from applying for and obtaining a patent from the United States, or, in the event of their obtaining one, constituting them trustees of the same for the benefit of the rightful owners of the claim, or possessory title, under the laws of Colorado, inasmuch as the mining act requires the patent to be issued only to parties having previously occupied and improved the claims according to the mining regulations in force in the respective districts. The pretense of want of power to prosecute is therefore gratuitous, and to send the case into the courts a second time would be, under the circumstances, trifling with the provisions of the mining act.

Very respectfully, etc.,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

Water Rights protected by Local Laws.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Nov. 23, 1869.

MR. R. L. M. CAMDEN, 326 Walnut St., Phila., Pa.

SIR: Referring to your letter of the 22nd, concerning a ditch or canal owned by you in California, submitting the query whether your rights to the property are not fully protected by the ninth section of the act of July 26, 1866, commonly called the mining act, I have to state that the statute referred to is the result of a policy on the part of Congress, seeking to harmonize the right of sovereignty of the soil, inherent in the general government with certain possessory rights growing out of the peculiar condition of things found in the mining States and Territories of the west, which had become engrafted upon the public lands through the operation of local customs and legislative enactments.

object is to furnish a method of dealing with these conflicting interests so as not to impair the validity of either. It recognizes and preserves such possessory claims as are valid and effective under local regulations, but it does not create them. It substantially embodies a stipulation that the general government, in disposing of the public domain, will proceed in such a manner as to protect such rights of possession to the same as claimants may be entitled to, under such local customs, or laws, at the time of the sale by the United States. But these rights derive all their vitality from local regulations, the act of Congress imparts none. It respects those existing at the date of the sale of the public lands, but superadds nothing to their efficiency under the local laws. Take away the regulations adopted by miner's meetings, or local legislatures, and all rights acquired under them in respect to lands remaining unsold must fail.

If, therefore, you inquire to what extent the ninth section of the mining act protects your property in certain water rights in California, or in a particular mining ditch or canal, the answer is, that in disposing of the public lands, upon which said canal is located, the United States, will, under said ninth section, maintain and protect such rights in the same as have vested and accrued by priority of possession, and which at the time of such disposal are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws and decisions of the courts of California.

In the opinion of the Commissioner, therefore, your rights in the matter of the canal are primarily regulated by the customs, laws and courts of California; and the only protection the act of July 26, 1866, can render you, is in upholding the integrity of these so far as they may constitute the foundation of any right you may have in or to such canal, when the general government grants the lands upon which it is located, with this addition, that during the time intervening between the passage of the mining act and the disposal of the land by the United States, you cannot be held as a trespasser on it in respect to any rights thus secured to you by such customs and laws of California, or decisions of its courts.

Very respectfully etc.,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

Register's and Receiver's Fees for Affidavits, Certificates, or other Writing.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Dec. 10, 1869. Register and Receiver, U. S. Land Office, Helena, Montana: GENTLEMEN: This office has received a communication from Messrs. Smith & Cullen, of Helena, making inquiries as to the fees allowed by law to Registers and Receivers, for services under the mining act of July 26, 1866.

In reply to similar inquiries heretofore made, the Commissioner of the General Land Office had decided, that as the act referred to makes no specific provisions on the subject of fees, the question must be determined by a well known rule constantly applied in similar cases; and that the fees chargeable under this law must be the same as are specifically provided for like services under other acts of Congress; that the mining act is substantially a pre-emption law; and, as the fourth and sixth sections of the act of March 21, 1864, amendatory of the Homestead Law, and for other purposes, provides that the Register and Receiver shall each be entitled to receive one dollar and fifty cents for their services in acting upon pre-emption claims in Montana and the other localities named, and shall be allowed jointly at the rate of twenty-two and one half cents per hundred words for the testimony which may be reduced to writing by them, the same act will furnish a rule regulating the fees allowed under the act of July 21, 1866.

The charge of twenty-two and a half cents per hundred words need not be limited to what is technically called testimony in courts, but may very properly apply to all written matter necessary to prepare the case for administrative action in this office, whether the same be in the form of · affidavits, certificates, or other appropriate and necessary writing, providing the same are prepared by the Register and Receiver, or according to their direction and under their supervision.

Messrs. Smith & Cullen have been furnished with a copy of this letter. Very respectfully,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

The Owner of a Lode may follow it to any depth, although it may Enter the Land Adjoining.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, January 7, 1870. Register and Receiver U. S. Land Office, Sacramento, Cal.: GENTLEMEN: A number of communications have been received at this office from Williams & Co., objecting to a patent being issued to the Pittsburg Company on the Mt. Joy lode, on the ground of an alleged conflict between the claims of these companies.

In their protest filed with the Surveyor-general on the twentieth March last, Williams & Co. object: 1st. Because the Pittsburg Company's survey does not correctly designate the course of the lode, the former alleging its bearing to be N. 71° E., or thereabouts. 2d. That the final survey of the Pittsburg Company differs from the preliminary one, and from their notice of application for patent, in this: that in the final survey the last course is N. 251° W., instead of N. 19° W., as in the preliminary and notice.

They contend that the lode should be cut at right angles with its general course, and that a line bearing N..190 W. will thus cut it. They were informed that the line is in fact the same in both surveys, the only discrepancy consisting in an erroneous bearing having been given to it in the preliminary proceedings, and they now appear to have abandoned the objection as originally made, and insist that the real conflict is not on the surface, but "under ground." In their last communication to their attorney in this city they even appear to adopt the bearing of N. 250 W. as designating the true boundary between themselves and that company, but complain that the Pittsburg Company, in working down in their vein, do not observe this line; that they treat it as having relation merely to their surface ground, and that they have, as a matter of fact, followed the ledge "under ground" far beyond this line.

The ledge or vein, it seems, dips at an angle of 40° or 45°, and as the boundary line between the companies on the surface does not cut the ledge at right angles with its course, but makes smaller angle on the side of the Pittsburg Company's claim, that company in descending into the lode will necessarily get beyond the line, unless they continually vary from what would be a perpendicular if the vein occupied a vertical position, and this it appears is what Williams & Co. contend the Pittsburg Company is obliged to do.

It should be remembered, however, that no patent has yet been issued to this company, and if they are now fol

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