Fully one-half of all the sections of the old Colorado Statutes on the subject of mines, was taken up by a persistent attempt to force a "School Claim" on each location. The whole effort was in violation of the Organic Act, and has been held absolutely null and void as well by the courts as by the land office, and repudiated by the miners as an attempt to put the whole cost of schools on a class of men who, as a rule, were not persons with families.

By Act of 1862, claim No. 3, east or west, was to be set apart for schools; by Act of 1866, one side claim on each end of the discovery claim of 1,400 feet was to be recorded-100 feet for schools and 100 feet for disabled miners.

SOLDIERS' CLAIMS.

By Territorial Acts passed in instances during the civil war, claims belonging to soldiers were protected from forfeiture during enlistment and for a reasonable time thereafter; they were also allowed to locate and record claims by proxy; and their titles were protected from sale on execution during their absence.

During the Spanish war Congress passed the following Act relieving volunteers from performing assessment work during their term of service. It did not relieve their co-owners from doing their proper proportion of work on the same claim.

An Act to relieve owners of mining claims who enlist in the military or naval service of the United States for duty in the war with Spain from performing assessment work during such term of service:

No Annual Labor Required on Soldiers' Claim.-That the provisions of section twenty-three hundred and twenty-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which require that on each claim located after the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, and until patent has been issued therefor, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year, shall not apply to claims or parts of claims owned by persons who may enlist in the volunteer army or navy of the United States for service in a war between this country and Spain, so that no mining claim or any part thereof owned by such person which has been regularly located and recorded shall be subject to forfeiture for nonperformance of the annual assessments until six months after such owner is mustered out of the service, or, if he should not survive the war, then six months after his death in the service.

Certificate to be Filed.-Sec. 2. That those desiring to take advantage of this Act shall file, or cause to be filed, a notice in the clerk's office where the location certificate of said mine is recorded before the expiration of the assessment year, giving notice of his enlistment and of his desire to hold said claim under this Act.

Co-owners.-Sec. 3. That if any such enlisted soldier or sailor has a coowner or coowners in any mining claim, and who are not in the Army or Navy, and such coowner or coowners fail to do such a proportion of one hundred dollars' worth of work per annum as the interest of such nonenlisted person or persons bears to the whole claim, then such interest shall be open to relocation by any other qualified person or persons by their doing the necessary work thereon and filing an affidavit of labor showing the forfeiture and that the relocators had done the annual work required of such nonenlisted persons and succeeded them in right under this Act, which work may be done at any time after the expiration of the assessment year and before the former owners resume work thereon. The work and affidavit aforesaid shall operate as a transfer of said forfeited interest from the former owners to said relocators.-Approved, July 2, 1898.

LENGTH OF LODE CLAIM LOCATED BEFORE MAY 10, 1872.

Three Thousand-Foot Act of Congress of 1866.-2 4 * * * No location hereafter made shall exceed two hundred feet in length along the vein for each locator, with an additional claim for discovery to the discoverer of the lode, with the right to follow such vein to any depth, with all its dips, variations, and angles, together with a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient working of the same as fixed by local rules. And provided further, That no person may make more than one location on the same lode, and not more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by any association of persons.-A. C. July 26, 1866. Repealed May 10, 1872.

Before the Act of Congress of 1866 the length of lode claims was regulated either by district rules or by State or Territorial legislation. It was by no means uniform. Short lengths of 100 or 200 feet, sometimes as low as fifty feet or less, were the limitations under the older district rules. In later years the tendency was to allow longer claims. In Colorado the statute fixed the length of a claim in 1861 at 100 feet. In 1866 at 1,400 feet. The Act of Congress of 1866 allowed 400 feet to the discoverer and a claim of 200 feet to each associate locator, not exceeding 3,000 feet on the lode under one location.

Associates and Side Claims.-It is impossible to understand the limitations on the size of claims without considering a certain custom which originated in the earliest mining camps of California and became a general practice over the Western Slope. With slight local modifications this custom was for the discoverer to record a notice that he claimed 50, 100 or 200 feet, as the case might be, on a certain lode. On the same paper, or by a separate paper signed later, other parties, real or nominal associates of the discoverer, would

give notice of claim to No. 1 East, No. 1 West, etc., on the same lode. Not only would the associates of the discoverer make such records, but often third parties, without even going on the ground, would file on these side claims-in instances to the extent of several thousand feet on each side from the discovery claim.

Joint Records. In other districts the discoverer and his associates would file on the discovery claim, No. 1 East, No. 1 West, No. 2 West, etc., indefinitely by a joint location certificate, not attempting to segregate the feet claimed by one from the feet claimed by the other.

Record Without Location Work. These side claims, whether taken separately or as one joint location, were supposed to be at least staked off on the ground, but no discovery hole was required, and, in fact, in most cases, only the paper record was made and the claims seldom pursued further, unless developments on the discovery claim seemed to indicate that the side claims might be of value. Such was not the original intention of the miners, but the custom degenerated to this, and the records of hundreds of such claims remain, whose owners never did any work upon, nor ever knew the exact situation of their claims.

Nominal Associates Conveying to Discoverer.— This privilege to locate side claims was soon taken advantage of by the discoverer, who procured nominal parties to record, and immediately after recording to convey their claims to him, and as soon as the Act of Congress, 1866, was passed, such became the universal practice, the custom as it already existed being altered only in this: That the claims were no longer numbered, but were taken together as a joint location by a supposed association of fourteen persons, taking fifteen claims of 200 feet each, or 3,000 feet in all-the discoverer being allowed one additional claim. Further, after the passage of such Act, the staking of the lode into its several claims was abandoned altogether. Before the Act each locator usually recorded one specific

claim, in which the other locators had no interest, nor he in theirs, but after the Act, the record almost always showed a joint location of undivided claims.

Validity of Such Nominal Records. It is more than doubtful whether at any time, as against an adverse bona fide claim, such nominal side claims were by the record alone, of any validity, unless actually possessed and defined upon the ground in some manner; Cons. Rep. Co. v. Lebanon Co. 9 Colo. 343; Becker v. Pugh, Id. 589; Hess v. Winder, 12 M. R. 217; but the practice of the Land Office is to patent such claims without inquiry, if sufficient development for patent has been done on any one of them, or on the discovery.

Length of Lode Claim at Various Dates in Colorado.

1. Prior to Nov. 7, 1861, the length of a lode claim was fixed by district rules.

2. From Nov. 7, 1861, to March 11, 1864, the length of a claim was 100 feet, but an indefinite number of claims could be based on a single discovery.

3. From March 11, 1864, to Feb. 9, 1866, 100 feet was the length of a claim, and sixteen claims of that length could be based on a single discovery.

4. From Feb. 9, 1866, to July 26, 1866, 1,400 feet was the length of a claim and the limit of a location.

5. From July 26, 1866, to Feb. 11, 1870, 200 feet was the length of a claim and 1,400 feet could be taken under one location.

6. From Feb. 11, 1870, to May 10, 1872, 200 feet was the length of a claim and 3,000 feet could be taken under one location.

7. Since May 10, 1872, 1,500 feet is the length of a claim,