claim, it shall and may be lawful for said claimant, or association of claimants, to file in the local land office a diagram of the same, so extended laterally or otherwise, as to conform to the local laws, customs, and rules of miners, and to enter such tract and receive a patent therefor, granting such mine, together with the right to follow such vein or lode with its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition."

Mining claims may be entered at any district land office in the United States under this law by any person, or association of persons, corporate or incorporate. In making the entry, however, such a description of the tract must be filed as will indicate the vein or lode, or part or portion thereof claimed, together with a diagram representing, by reference to some natural or artificial monument, the position and location of the claim and. the boundaries thereon, so far as such boundaries can be ascertained.

First. In all cases the number of feet in length claimed on the vein or lode shall be stated in the application filed as aforesaid, and the lines limiting the length of the claim shall, also, in all cases be exhibited on the diagram, and the course or direction of such end lines, when not fixed by agreement with the adjoining claimants, nor by the local customs or rules of the miners of the district, shall be drawn at right angles to the ascertained or apparent general course of the vein or lode.

Second. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes except the surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are unascertained, and the lateral extent of such vein or lode unknown, it shall be sufficient, after giving the description and diagram aforesaid, to state the fact that the extent of such vein or lode cannot be ascertained by actual measurement, but that the said vein or lode is bounded on each side by the wall of the same, and to estimate the amount of ground contained between the given end lines and the unascertained walls of the vein or lode; and in such case the patent will issue for all the land contained between such end lines and side walls, with the right to follow such vein or lode, with all its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter the land adjoining: Provided, The estimated quantity shall be equal to a horizontal plane bounded by the given end lines, and the walls on the sides of such vein or lode.

Third. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes, except the surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are ascertained and well known, such

wall shall be named in the description, and marked on the diagram, in connection with the end lines of such claims.

Fourth. Where, by the laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, a given quantity of surface ground is fixed for the purpose of mining or milling the ore, the aforesaid diagram and description in the entry shall correspond with and include so much. of the surface as shall be allowed by such laws, customs, or rules for the purpose aforesaid.

Fifth. In the absence of uniform rules in any mining district limiting the amount of surface to be used for mining purposes, actual and peaceable use and occupation for mining or milling purposes shall be regarded as evidence of a custom of miners authorizing the same, and the ground so occupied and used in connection with the vein or lode, and being adjacent thereto, may be included within the entry aforesaid, and the diagram shall embrace the same as appurtenant to the mine.

Where the claimant or claimants desire to include within their entry and diagram any surface ground beyond the surface of the vein, it shall be necessary, upon filing the application, to furnish the Register of the land office with proof of the usage, law, or custom under which he or they claim such surface ground, and such evidence may consist either of the written rules of the miners of the district or the testimony of two credible witnesses to the uniform custom or the actual use and occupation as aforesaid, which testimony shall be reduced to writing by the Register and Receiver, and filed in the Register's office, with the application, a record thereof to be made as contemplated under the first head in the foregoing.

By the third section of the act it is required that upon the filing of the diagram as provided in the second section, and posting the same in a conspicuous place on the claim, with notice of intention to apply for a patent, the Register shall publish a notice of the same in a newspaper nearest the location of said claim, which notice shall state name of the claimant, name of mine, names of adjoining claimants on each end of the claim, the district and county in which the mine is situated, informing the public that application has been made for a patent for same, the Register also to post such notice in his office for ninety days.

Thereafter, should no adverse claim have been filed, and satisfactory proof should be produced that the Diagram and Notice have been posted in the manner and for the period stipulated in the statute, it will become the duty of the Surveyor-General, upon application of the party, to survey the premises, and make plat thereof, indorsed with his approval, designating the number and description of the location, the value of the labor and improvements, and the character of the vein exposed. As preliminary to the survey, however, the Surveyor-General must estimate

the expense of surveying, platting, and ascertain from the Register the cost of the publication of notice, the amount of all of which must be deposited by the applicant for survey with any assistant United States Treasurer or designated depositary, in favor of the United States Treasurer, to be passed to the credit of the fund created by "individual depositors for the surveys of the public lands." Duplicate certificates of such deposits must be filed with the Surveyor-General for transmission to this office, as in the case of deposits for surveys of public lands under the 10th section of the act of Congress approved May 30th, 1862, and joint resolution of July 1st, 1864.

After the survey thus paid for shall have been duly executed, and the plat thereof approved by the Surveyor-General, designating the number and the description of the location, accompanied by his official certificate of the value of the labor and improvements and character of the vein exposed, with the testimony of two or more reliable persons cognizant of the facts on which his certificate may be founded as to the value of the labor and improvements, the party claiming shall file the same with the Register and Receiver, and thereupon pay to the said Receiver five dollars per acre for the premises embraced in the survey, and shall file with those officers a triplicate certificate of deposit showing the payment of the cost of survey, plat, and notice, with satisfactory evidence, which shall be the testimony of at least two credible witnesses, that the diagram and notice were posted on the claim for a period of ninety days, as required by law and as contemplated in the foregoing. Thereupon it shall be the duty of the Register to transmit to the General Land Office said plat, survey, and description, with the proof indorsed as satisfactory by the Register and Receiver, so that a patent may issue if the proceedings are found regular, but neither the plat, survey, description, nor patent shall issue for more than one vein or lode.

The unity of the surveying system is to be maintained by extending over the mining districts the rectangular method, at least so far as township lines are concerned.

The contemplated surveys of the mineral lands will be made by district deputies, under contracts, according to the mode adopted in the survey of the public lands and private land claims, embracing in them all such veins or lodes as may be called for by claimants entitled to have them surveyed.

In consideration of the very limited scope of surveying involved in each mining claim, the per mileage allowed by law may not be adequate to secure the services of scientific surveyors, and hence the necessity of resorting to a per diem principle, it being the most equitable under the circumstances.

The Surveyor-General is therefore hereby authorized to com

mission resident mineral surveyors for different districts where, isolated from each other, and absolutely inconvenient for one surveyor promptly to attend to the several calls for surveying in such localities, the compensation not to exceed ten dollars per diem, including all expenses incident thereto. Such surveyors shall enter into bonds of $10,000 for the faithful performance of their duties in the survey of such claims as the Surveyor-General may be required to execute in pursuance of the aforesaid law and these instructions.

The fourth section contemplates the location and entry of a mine upon unsurveyed lands, stipulating for the surveys of public lands to be adjusted to the lines of the claims, according to the location and possession and plat thereof. In surveying such claims, the Surveyor-General is authorized to vary from the rectangular form to suit the circumstances of the country, local rules, laws, and customs of miners. The extent of the locations made from and after the passage of the act shall, however, not 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: Provided, No person may make more than one location on the same lode, and no more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by any association of persons.

The deputy surveyors should be scientific men, capable of examining and reporting fully on every lode they will survey, and to bring in duplicate specimens of the ore, one of which you will send to this office and the other the Surveyor-General will keep to be ultimately turned over with the surveying archives to the State authorities.

The surveyors of mineral claims, whether on surveyed or unsurveyed lands, must designate those claims by a progressive series of numbers, beginning with No. 37, so as to avoid interference in that respect with the regular sectional series of numbers in each township; and shall designate the four corners of each claim, where the side lines of the same are known, so that such corners can be given by either trees, if any are found standing in place, or any corner rocks exist in place, or posts may be set diagonally and deeply imbedded, with four sides facing adjoining claims, sufficiently flattened to admit of inscriptions thereon; but where the corners are unknown, it will be sufficient to place a well built solid mound at each end of the claim. The beginning corner of the claim nearest to any corners of the public surveys is to be connected by course and distance, so as to ascertain the relative position of each claim in reference to township and range when the same have been surveyed; but in those parts

of the surveying district where no such lines have as yet been extended, it will be the duty of Surveyors-General to have the same surveyed and marked, at least so far as standard and township lines are concerned, at the per mileage allowed, so as to embrace the mineral region, and to connect the nearest corners of the mineral claims with the corners of the public surveys.

Should it, however, be found impracticable to establish independent base and meridian lines, or to extend township lines over the region containing mineral claims required to be surveyed under the law, then, and in that case, you will cause to be surveyed in the first instance such a claim, the initial point of which will start either from a confluence of waters or such natural and permanent objects as will unmistakably identify the point of the beginning of the survey of the claim upon which other surveys will depend.

SEC. 5. Provides that in cases where the laws of Congress are silent upon the subject of rules for working mines, respecting easements, drainage, and other necessary means to the complete development of the same, the local Legislature of any State or Territory may provide them, and in order to embody such enactments into patents, you are directed to communicate any such laws to this office.

SEC. 6. Should adverse claimants to any mine appear before the approval of the survey, all further proceedings shall be stayed until a final settlement and adjudication are had in the courts of the rights of possession to such claim, except where the parties agree to settlement or a portion of the premises is not in dispute, when a patent may issue as in other cases.

SEC. 7. Provides for such additional land districts as may be necessary.

SEC. 8. For the right of way.

SEC. 9. For the protection of rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, for the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals; and makes parties constructing such work (after the passage of this act) to the injury of settlers, liable in damages.

SEC. 10. Homesteads made prior to the passage of this act by citizens of the United States, or persons who have declared their intention to become citizens, but on which lands no valuable mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper have been discovered, are protected, so that settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption thereto, in quantity not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, at $1.25 per acre, or to avail themselves of the Homestead act and acts amendatory thereof.

SEC. 11. Stipulates that upon the survey of the lands in question, the Secretary of the interior may set apart such portions as