Assay Offices.-Under the Territorial statutes were created certain official assay offices. They amounted to nothing more than to confer a public title on a party carrying on a private trade, and were abolished by the Act creating the office of Commissioner of mines. Official Assays.-Assays and analyses that may be called official can now only be had from the State School of Mines, at Golden.-M. A. S. & 4085. SCHOOL OF MINES. The General Assembly may provide that the Science of Mining and Metallurgy be taught in one or more of the institutions of learning under the patronage of the State.-Colo. Const. Art. 16, Sec. 4. Under the above provision the "School of Mines" at Golden is specially incorporated under M. A. S. Chap. 110, and is supported by the State. Its declared object is to furnish "such instruction as is provided for in like technical schools of a high grade," and it is authorized to confer degrees.-M. A. S. 4074. The course includes four years of two terms each. These are divided, after the first year, into Mining and Metallurgical and Electrical Engineering. Similar State schools are established at Rolla, Missouri; Houghton, Michigan; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Butte, Montana. The University of California also has a department styled a School of Mines. LAND OFFICE REGULATIONS. Re-Issued by the General Land Office, June † NATURE AND EXTENT OF MINING CLAIMS. 1. Mining claims are of two distinct classes: Lode claims and placers. LODE CLAIMS. 2. The Status of Lode Claims Located or Patented Previous to the 10th Day of May, 1872, is not changed with regard to their extent along the lode or width of surface; but the claim is enlarged by sections 2322 and 2328, by investing the locator, his heirs or assigns, with the right to follow, upon the conditions stated therein, all veins, lodes, or ledges, the top or apex of which lies inside of the surface lines of his claim. 3. Idem. 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. 4. Length-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 * DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERI, B. GENERAL LAND OFFICE,} D. C., October 11, "R. S. Morrison, Esq., Denver, Colorado. "Sir: In response to your request, I enclose a copy of the circular approved June 24, 1899, which is the latest revision of the general mining circular containing the United States mining laws and the official regulations thereunder. Very respectfully, † In the circular these instructions are preceded by a copy of the Act of Congress. persons, severally qualified as above, may make joint location of such claim of fifteen hundred feet, but in no event can a location of a vein or lode made after the 10th day of May, 1872, exceed fifteen hundred feet along the course thereof, whatever may be the number of persons composing the association. 5. Width-Surface Ground.-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 can not 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 can not 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. 6. Size of Claim.-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. *7. Overlapping Lode Claims.-The rights granted to locators under section 2322, Revised Statutes, are restricted to such locations on veins, lodes, or ledges as may be "situated on the public domain." In applications for lode claims where the survey conflicts with the survey or location lines of a prior valid *While these rules were in press the Department amended rule 7 and abolished rule 8, under the ruling in the Hustler Lode, In re, 29 L. D. 668. "7. The rights granted to locators under Section 2322, Revised Statutes, are restricted to such locations on veins, lodes or ledges, as may be situated upon the public domain.' In applications for patent to lode claims where the survey conflicts with the survey or location lines of another lode claim and the ground in lode claim and the ground within the conflicting surveys is excluded, the applicant not only has no right to the excluded ground, but he has no right to that portion of any vein or lode the top or apex of which lies within such excluded ground, unless his location was prior to May 10, 1872. His right to the lode claimed terminates where the lode, in its onward course or strike, intersects the exterior boundary of such excluded ground and passes within it. The end line of his survey should not, therefore, be established beyond such intersection. *8. End Line of Lode Claim Abutting on Prior Survey.Where, however, the lode claim for which survey is being made was located prior to the conflicting claim, and such conflict is to be excluded, in order to include all ground not so excluded the end line of the survey may be established within the conflicting lode claim, but the line must be so run as not to extend any farther into such conflicting claim than may be necessary to make such end line parallel to the other end line and at the same time embrace the ground so held and claimed. The useless practice in such cases of extending both the side lines of a survey into the conflicting claim and establishing an end line wholly within it, beyond a point necessary under the rule just stated, will be discontinued. 9. Location Certificate.-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. 10. No Record Before Discovery. No lode claim shall be located until after the discovery of a vein or lode within the limits of the claim, 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. 11. Location Notice.-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-bearing vein, lode, or crevice; should determine, if possible, the general course of such vein in either direction from the point of discovery, by such conflict is excluded, the applicant not only has no right to the excluded ground, but he has no right to that portion of any vein or lode the top or apex of which lies within such excluded ground, unless his location was prior to May 10, 1872. His right to the lode claimed terminates where the lode, in its onward course or strike, intersects the exterior boundary of such excluded ground and passes within it. *"Paragraph 8 of said mining regulations is hereby abolished." which direction he will be governed in marking the boundaries of his claim on the surface. His location notice should give the course and distance as nearly as practicable from the discovery shaft on the claim to some permanent, well-known points or objects, such, for instance, as stone monuments, blazed trees, the confluence of streams, point of intersection of well-known gulches, ravines or roads, prominent buttes, hills, etc., which may be in the immediate vicinity, and which will serve to perpetuate and fix the locus of the claim and render it susceptible of identification from the description thereof given in the record of locations in the district, and should be duly recorded. 12. Adjoining Claims-Staking.-In addition to the foregoing data, the claimant should state the names of adjoining claims, or, if none adjoin, the relative positions of the nearest claims; should drive a post or erect a monument of stones at each corner of his surface ground, and at the point of discovery or discovery shaft should fix a post, stake, or board, upon which should be designated the name of the lode, the name or names of the locators, the number of feet claimed, and in which direction from the point of discovery; it being essential that the location notice filed for record, in addition to the foregoing description, should state whether the entire claim of fifteen hundred feet is taken on one side of the point of discovery, or whether it is partly upon one and partly upon the other side thereof, and in the latter case, how many feet are claimed upon each side of such discovery point. 13. Record. The location notice must be filed for record in all respects as required by the State or Territorial laws and local rules and regulations, if there be any. 14. Annual Labor on Old Locations.-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. 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. 15. Annual Labor on New Locations.-In order to hold the possessory right to a location made since May 10, 1872, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor must be performed or improvements made thereon annually until entry shall have been made. Under the provisions of the Act of Congress approved January 22, 1880, the first annual expenditure becomes due and must be performed during the calendar year succeeding that in which the location was made. Expenditure made or |