provided for by this act shall be ex officio surveyor-general of said district and the laws of the United States relating to mining claims, and the rights incident thereto, shall, from and after the passage of this act, be in full force and effect in said district, under the administration thereof herein provided for, subject to such regulations as may be made by the Secretary of the Interior, approved by the President: Provided, That the Indians or other persons in said district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation or now claimed by them, but the terms under which such persons may acquire title to such lands is reserved for future legislation by Congress: And provided further, That parties who have located mines or mineral privileges therein under the laws of the United States applicable to the public domain, or who have occupied and improved or exercised acts of ownership over such claims, shall not be disturbed therein, but shall be allowed to perfect their title to such claims by payment as aforesaid: And provided also, That the land not exceeding six hundred and forty acres at any station now occupied as missionary stations among the Indian tribes in said section, with the improvements thereon erected by or for such societies, shall be continued in the occupancy of the several religious societies to which said missionary stations respectively belong until action by Congress. But nothing contained in this act shall be construed to put in force in said district the general land laws of the United States. * Approved May 17, 1884. (23 Stat., 24.) AN ACT making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, * * * * No person who shall, after the passage of this act, enter upon any of the public lands with a view to occupation, entry, or settlement under any of the land laws shall be permitted to acquire title to more than three hundred and twenty acres in the aggregate, under all of said laws, but this limitation shall not operate to curtail the right of any person who has heretofore made entry or settlement on the public lands, or whose occupation, entry, or settlement is validated by this act: Provided, That in all patents for lands hereafter taken up under any of the land laws of the United States or on entries or claims validated by this act, west of the one hundredth meridian it shall be expressed that there is reserved from the lands in said patent described a right of way thereon for ditches or canals constructed by the authority of the United States. * * Approved August 30, 1890. (26 Stat., 371.) * AN ACT to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SEC. 16. That townsite entries may be made by incorporated towns and cities on the mineral lands of the United States, but no title shall be acquired by such towns or cities to any vein of gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, or lead, or to any valid mining claim or possession held under existing law. When mineral veins are possessed within the limits of an incorporated town or city, and such possession is recognized by local authority or by the laws of the United States, the title to town lots shall be subject to such recognized possession and the necessary use thereof and when entry has been made or patent issued for such townsites to such incorporated town or city, the possessor of such mineral vein may enter and receive patent for such mineral vein, and the surface ground appertaining thereto: Provided, That no entry shall be made by such mineral-vein claimant for surface ground where the owner or occupier of the surface ground shall have had possession of the same before the inception of the title of the mineral-vein applicant. SEC. 17. That reservoir sites located or selected and to be located and selected under the provisions of "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, and for other purposes," and amendments thereto, shall be restricted to and shall contain only so much land as is actually necessary for the construction and maintenance of reservoirs, excluding so far as practicable lands occupied by actual settlers at the date of the location of said reservoirs, and that the provisions of "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and for other purposes," which reads as follows, viz: "No person who shall after the passage of this act enter upon any of the public lands with a view to occupation, entry, or settlement under any of the land laws shall be permitted to acquire title to more than three hundred and twenty acres in the aggregate under all said laws," shall be construed to include in the maximum amount of lands the title to which is permitted to be acquired by one person only agricultural lands and not include lands entered or sought to be entered under mineral land laws. Approved March 3, 1891. (26 Stat., 1095.) 9710 M L- -2 MINERAL LANDS OPEN TO EXPLORATION, OCCUPATION, AND PURCHASE. 1. It will be perceived that by the foregoing provisions of law the mineral lands in the public domain, surveyed or unsurveyed, are open to exploration, occupation, and purchase by all citizens of the United States and all those who have declared their intentions to become such. STATUS OF LODE-CLAIMS LOCATED PRIOR TO MAY 10, 1872. 2. By an examination of the several sections of the Revised Statutes it will be seen that the status of lode-claims located previous to the 10th May, 1872, is not changed with regard to their extent along the lode or width of surface. 3. Mining rights acquired under such previous locations are, however, enlarged by such Revised Statutes in the following respect, viz: The locators of all such previously taken veins or lodes, their heirs and assigns, so long as they comply with the laws of Congress and with State, Territorial, or local regulations not in conflict therewith, governing mining claims, are invested with the exclusive possessory right of all the surface included within the lines of their locations, and of all veins, lodes, or ledges throughout their entire depth, the top or apex of which lies inside of such surface lines extended downward vertically, although such veins, lodes, or ledges may so far depart from a perpendicular in their course downward as to extend outside the vertical side-lines of such locations at the surface, it being expressly provided, however, that the right of possession to such outside parts of said veins or ledges shall be confined to such portions thereof as lie between vertical planes drawn downward, as aforesaid, through the end lines of their locations so continued in their own direction that such planes will intersect such exterior parts of such veins, lodes, or ledges; no right being granted, however, to the claimant of such outside portion of a vein or ledge to enter upon the surface location of another claimant. 4. It is to be distinctly understood, however, that the law limits the possessory right to veins, lodes, or ledges, other than the one named in the original location, to such as were not adversely claimed on May 10, 1872, and that where such other vein or ledge was so adversely claimed at that date, the right of the party so adversely claiming is in no way impaired by the provisions of the Revised Statutes. 5. In order to hold the possessory title to a mining claim located prior to May 10, 1872, and for which a patent has not been issued, the law requires that ten dollars shall be expended annually in labor or improvements on each claim of one hundred feet on the course of the vein or lode until a patent shall have been issued therefor; but where a number of such claims are held in common upon the same vein or lode, the aggregate expenditure that would be necessary to hold all the claims, at the rate of ten dollars per hundred feet, may be made upon any one claim; a failure to comply with this requirement in any one year subjecting the claim upon which such failure occurred to relocation by other parties, the same as if no previous location thereof had ever been made, unless the claimants under the original location shall have resumed work thereon after such failure and before such relocation. The first annual expenditure upon claims of this class should have been performed subsequent to May 10, 1872, and prior to January 1, 1875. From and after January 1, 1875, the required amount must be expended annually until patent issues. By decision of the honorable Secretary of the Interior, dated March 4, 1879, such annual expenditures are not required subsequent to entry, the date of issuing the patent certificate being the date contemplated by statute. 6. Upon the failure of any one of several co-owners of a vein, lode, or ledge, which has not been entered, to contribute his proportion of the expenditures necessary to hold the claim or claims so held in ownership in common, the co-owners, who have performed the labor or made the improvements as required by said Revised Statutes, may, at the expiration of the year, give such delinquent co-owner personal notice in writing, or notice by publication in the newspaper published nearest the claim for at least once a week for ninety days; and if upon the expiration of ninety days after such notice in writing, or upon the expiration of one hundred and eighty days after the first newspaper publication of notice, the delinquent co-owner shall have failed to contribute his proportion to meet such expenditures or improvements, his interest in the claim by law passes to his co-owners who have made the expenditures or improvements as aforesaid. Where a claimant alleges ownership of a forfeited interest under the foregoing provision, the sworn statement of the publisher as to the facts of publication, giving dates and a printed copy of the notice published, should be furnished, and the claimant must swear that the delinquent co-owner failed to contribute his proper proportion within the period fixed by the statute. PATENTS FOR VEINS OR LODES HERETOFORE ISSUED. 7. Rights under patents for veins or lodes heretofore granted under previous legislation of Congress are enlarged by the Revised Statutes so as to invest the patentee, his heirs or assigns, with title to all veins, lodes, or ledges throughout their entire depth, the top or apex of which lies within the end and side boundary lines of his claim on the surface, as patented, extended downward vertically, although such veins, lodes, or ledges may so far depart from a perpendicular in their course down ward as to extend outside the vertical side-lines of the claim at the surface. The right of possession to such outside parts of such veins or ledges to be confined to such portions thereof as lie between vertical planes drawn downward through the end lines of the claims at the surface, so continued in their own direction that such planes will intersect such exterior parts of such veins or ledges; it being expressly provided, however, that all veins, lodes, or ledges, the top or apex of which lies inside such surface locations, other than the one named in the patent, which were adversely claimed on the 10th May, 1872, are excluded from such conveyance by patent. 8. Applications for patents for mining-claims pending at the date of the act of May 10, 1872, may be prosecuted to final decision in the General Land Office, and where no adverse rights are affected thereby, patents will be issued in pursuance of the provisions of the Revised Statutes. MANNER OF LOCATING CLAIMS ON VEINS OR LODES AFTER MAY 10, 1872. 9. From and after the 10th May, 1872, any person who is a citizen of the United States, or who has declared his intention to become a citizen, may locate, record, and hold a mining claim of fifteen hundred linear feet along the course of any mineral vein or lode subject to location; or an association of persons, severally qualified as above, may make joint location of such claim of fifteen hundred feet, but in no event can a loca tion of a vein or lode made subsequent to May 10, 1872, exceed fifteen hundred feet along the course thereof, whatever may be the number of persons composing the association. 10. With regard to the extent of surface-ground adjoining a vein or lode, and claimed for the convenient working thereof, the Revised Statutes provide that the lateral extent of locations of veins or lodes made after May 10, 1872, shall in no case exceed three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, and that no such surface rights shall be limited by any mining regulations to less than twenty-five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, except where adverse rights existing on the 10th May, 1872, may render such limitation necessary; the end-lines of such claims to be in all cases parallel to each other. Said lateral measurements cannot extend beyond three hundred feet on either side of the middle of the vein at the surface, or such distance as is allowed by local laws. For example: 400 feet cannot be taken on one side and 200 feet on the other. If, however, 300 feet on each side are allowed, and by reason of prior claims but 100 feet can be taken on one side, the locator will not be restricted to less than 300 feet on the other side; and when the locator does not determine by exploration where the middle of the vein at the surface is, his discovery shaft must be assumed to mark such point. 11. By the foregoing it will be perceived that no lode-claim located after the 10th May, 1872, can exceed a parallelogram fifteen hundred feet in length by six hundred feet in width, but whether surface-ground of that width can be taken, depends upon the local regulations 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. 12. 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. 13. The statutes provide that no lode-claim shall be recorded until after the discovery of a vein or lode within the limits of the claim located, the object of which provision is evidently to prevent the appropriation of presumed mineral ground for speculative purposes to the exclusion of bona fide prospectors, before sufficient work has been done to determine whether a vein or lode really exists. 14. The claimant should, therefore, prior to locating his claim, unless the vein can be traced upon the surface, sink a shaft, or run a tunnel or drift, to a sufficient depth therein to discover and develop a mineral |