to water ditches and flumes, as in any other respect; and if parties have, by virtue of compliance with local laws, customs, or regulations of miners, or by decisions of courts, acquired the right to construct and maintain ditches or flumes across the mining grounds occupied by others, it is not perceived how their rights in this respect will be impaired by the issuing of a patent, or that, if necessary, the aid of the courts may not be invoked, as well after the issuance of a patent as before it. * * * * * * * Very respectfully, WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner. Foreign Corporations cannot assert an Adverse Claim to Unpatented Ground. A Claim cannot be taken for the Miners' Relief and Territorial Poor Fund. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 7, 1871. Register and Receiver, Central City, Colorado: GENTLEMEN: With your letter of date the twenty-fourth March last, were received the papers and your report in the matter of an application of William A. Hamill, for a patent for certain mining premises, called the Gunboat lode, situate in Clear Creek County, Colorado Territory. * * * On the eleventh August, 1870, Robert O. Öld, agent and superintendent of the Colorado Terrible Lode Mining Company, filed in your office his sworn statement, protesting against the survey and entry of said premises claimed by Hamill, "for the reason that said premises are not the property of said William A. Hamill, and the said applicant is not entitled to hold the same under and by the local laws of said Griffith mining district, nor the laws of Colorado Territory; and because the said premises, or some portion thereof, are claimed adversely by the Colorado Terrible lode mining company; and said premises, as described in said diagram, cannot be entered without interfering with certain property owned by it, and described as follows: The west seven hundred feet of the Terrible lode, to wit: the west half of property for which United States patent issued to Fred. A. Clark and Henry Crow, on the fourth day of December, 1869, and therefore make this adverse claim." On the nineteenth day of November, 1870, the said claimant, William A. Hamill, relinquished "from said application for patent all claim for patent to said east seven hundred (700) feet of said Gunboat lode, under the above application, hereby expressly declaring my intention not to relinquish any rights I may have to the east seven hundred feet of said lode, under the provisions of the local laws." * * * With reference to that portion of the affidavit of the agent of the Colorado Terrible Lode Mining Company, which alleges that the application of Hamill for patent for the westerly seven hundred feet of the Gunboat lode, "commences on, covers, and is identical with a part of the seven bundred feet of the Terrible lode, which was patented to Frederick A. Clark and Henry Crow, and by them deeded to said company," it is proper to state that an examination of the plat of the final survey, showing the relative positions of these claims fails to substantiate this alleged interference further than to show that post No. 6, at the north-east corner of the Gunboat survey, is a few feet inside the westerly limits of the surface ground patented with said Terrible lode, but inasmuch as no patent will issue on this survey of the Gunboat, without a special clause excepting from the conveyance any portion of the fourteen hundred feet of the Terrible lode and surface ground patented therewith, it is not perceived that this portion of said company's objections is entitled to further consideration. The company's further objection appears to be, in effect, that Hamill's said application and survey covers one hundred feet of mining ground adjoining and immediately beyond the westerly end line of the said patented Terrible lode. Their alleged possessory title to this disputed hundred feet of ground appears to have originated in a location thereof, made and recorded on the thirteenth day of December, 1866, as Claim No. 1, West, on the Terrible lode, in the name of the "Miners' Relief and Territorial Poor Fund," which was sold on the twelfth of July, 1869, by the County Treasurer to Fred. A. Clark and Henry Crow, who, on the eleventh of April, 1870, conveyed the same to said company. But on the thirteenth day of December, 1866, the date of this location, the Congressional Mining Law had been in force some months, and under it there was no authority for such location as this, inasmuch, as the "Miners' Relief and Territorial Poor Fund," was neither a person, nor an association of persons; was without legal existence, and powerless and incapacitated to "occupy and improve" a claim, or perform those acts of ownership, or possession required of miners, as conditions essential to the holding of claims, or of proceeding to make payment to the government and obtain patent. This office, therefore, declines to give further consideration to the right of said company to oppose said application, ruling that the said location was void ab initio, and that they acquired nothing by their purchase thereof from Clark and Crow, as aforesaid, those parties having no interest therein whatever to convey. It likewise appears from the papers that the said "Colorado Terrible Lode Mining Company," is a corporation created and existing under the laws of England, and is therefore not a citizen of the United States, and not capable of asserting a claim to any portion of the public land of the United States, or of receiving from the government a title therefor in any event. * * * * * * Very respectfully, WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner. Liens on Mines protected and strengthened by Patent. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., June 19, 1871. Register and Receiver, Central City, Colorado: GENTLEMEN: On the ninth day of February, 1870, the Franklin Silver Mining Company of Colorado, by their agent, A. Blackman, filed in your office an application for a patent for eight hundred feet in length, by fifty feet in width, on the Franklin lode, a silver and gold-bearing vein of rock in place, and situated in Idaho Mining District, Clear Creek County, Colorado. * * * The adverse claimants do not claim identity of Franklin with the Miner's Friend, or with the Williams lode, but the nature of their objections seem to be: First. An alleged interference with surface ground pertaining to the latter lodes according to local usages, claiming that the Franklin lode, or Crevice, is not in the center of the ground finally surveyed for them under their said application; and, Second. That the patent should not issue to said company by reason of a lien they have upon a portion of the lode. With reference to the first of these objections, it is proper to state that, upon a critical inspection of the plat of said final survey of the Franklin lode, the surface ground, fifty feet in width for the convenient working of the mine, as fixed by the law of Colorado Territory, is shown to embrace the shafts and buildings pertaining to said Franklin lode, the discovery shaft on said lode being represented as occupying a central position between the side boundary lines of the survey; and inasmuch as the Franklin lode was the prior discovery, and as said surveyed surface ground is neither shown, nor claimed to include any buildings or other im provements not pertaining to the Franklin lode, it is not perceived how in justice the very parties who originally located and sold the claim, can now appear against their successors in interest to prevent them from having the benefit of the mining statutes of Congress, and this office therefore declines to suspend the application on account of this objection. At the same time it is proper to state that neither these adverse claimants, nor any other parties, need be under any apprehensions that said company will take by their patent any other lode than the Franklin, upon which the required amount has been expended in labor and improvements, all other lodes or veins being "expressly excepted and excluded" from the conveyance, that being a general condition inserted in all mining patents. With regard to the question of the lien claimed by the said adverse parties upon a portion of the property, it will be perceived by a reference to the thirteen section of the Amendatory Mining Act of 9th July, 1870, (which constitutes a part of the original mining enactments) that a proviso is contained therein, "That nothing in this act shall be deemed to impair any lien, which may have attached in any way whatever to any mining claim or property thereto attached prior to the issuance of a patent.' If therefore, as alleged, the parties opposing this application have such lien upon the premises, or any portion thereof, they are fully protected by the law of Congress itself, and after the patent shall have been issued to the applicants, thus quieting the title, the parties claiming such lien will be in a much better condition to enforce it than if the question of titles was undermined. * * * * Very respectfully, * WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner.. Definition of "Rock in Place." DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., July 20, 1871. HON. THOMAS BOLES, Dardenelles, Arkansas: SIR: In reply to your inquiry of the eleventh instant, I have to state that the term "rock in place," as used in the mining acts of Congress, has always received the most liberal construction that the language will admit of, and every class of claims that, either according to scientific accuracy or popular usage, can be classed and applied for as a “vein or lode," may be patented under this law. The plain object of the law is to dispose of the mineral lands of the United States for money value; and it is a matter of indifference to the Government, whether the metal occurs in the form of a true or false vein. It may be observed, as an important point, that no proof is required to establish the vein formation of the deposit. The law requires the Surveyor-general to certify "to the character of the vein exposed;" but this is understood to mean that the certificate should show whether the vein exposed contains gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper. Very respectfully, WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner. Case of the New Idria Mining Company's Application for Patent for certain Mines in Fresno County, California. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Washington, D. C., August 4, 1871. SIR: I have examined the application of the New Idria Mining Company for the issuing of a patent for 480 acres of mineral lands in California, and am of opinion that the same should be rejected. Some of the necessary steps in the case were taken in direct violation of the orders of the proper officer in the Interior Department. The evidence is defective, in not showing that the proper notice and diagram were posted up on the premises, and in not identifying the claims alleged in the petition and advertisement. There is no sufficient proof of the citizenship of the claimants, and the amount of land claimed exceeds that authorized by law. I inclose a copy of the opinion of Assistant Attorneygeneral Smith in the case. I concur with him in the conclusion that the claim should be rejected. You will take the proper steps to carry this decision into effect. The papers transmitted with your letter of seventeenth September, 1870, are herewith returned. Î am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, B. R. COWEN, Acting Secretary. Hon. WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner General Land Office. [INCLOSURE.] DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, OFFICE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL, Washington, D. C., July 21, 1871. SIR: I have examined with care the application of the New Idria Mining Company for the issuing of a patent for 480 acres of mineral lands in townships seventeen and |