who have established a high civilization on the far-off Pacific, whose hearts, in the nation's trials, beat so true, and who are now fast closing in upon the civilization of your own west, should he made to feel, not that you are masters, but brethren and friends.

By their loyalty they gave you peace where your power was scarcely felt; by their industry they gave the solid base of silver and gold to the national issues and the national credit, and it is left to history to balance and to tell how, without that peace their patriotism so well preserved, and that silver and gold which their industry gave the nation, the national cause could have been equally benefited. From their earnings, too, came those contributions which will forever form so beautiful a chaplet around their own brows. They set the highest example of a Christian people, patriotic and peaceful, sturdy and loyal to freedom, industrious and charitable. It is for such a people that we legislate. The necessity for the segregation of the agricultural part of the public domain from that which is purely mineral is of the first character. It will be remembered that mining alone cannot supply a single human want, and no community would eventually be so poor as a mining community purely. But the miner is nearly always the pioneer of society where mines exist-shortly, however, to be followed by the agriculturist and the artisan. Mutual production and exchange result, and society is established. Nothing renders society so stable as giving to the people the title to the land upon which they live. They learn to love it, and are the first to find out its greatest value, and consequently to employ it for the highest uses. Homes of a permanent character are thus established, and the school-house and church follow to light the path and to cheer the way through life. To these ends the earliest ownership should be given to him who, by patient and virtuous toil, proposes to become a cornerstone to community. Every wise consideration demands that the segregation of the agricultural lands from those purely mining should be made, and this bill makes such provision.

Your committee are aware that they tread new ground, but they bring many years of experience to the task, and the light has been used to reach the end which will promote the greatest happiness of the citizen and the glory of the republic.*

The following is a copy of the act of Congress approved August, 1866, to legalize the occupation of the mineral lands, and for other purposes :

SECTION 1. That the mineral lands of the public domain, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and occupation by all citizens of the United States, and those who have declared their intention to become citizens, subject to such regulations as may be prescribed by law, and subject also to local custom or rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same may not be in conflict with the laws of the United States.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person or association of persons claim a vein or lode of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the same according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the same is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvements thereon an amount not less than one thousand dollars, and in regard to whose possession there is no controversy or opposing 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

* See Congressional Globe for debates on this bill.

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. SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That upon the filing of the diagram as provided in the second section of this act, and posting the same in a conspicuous place on the claim, together with a notice of intention to apply for a patent, the register of the land office shall publish a notice of the same in a newspaper published nearest to the location of said claim, and shall also post such notice in his office for the period of ninety days; and after the expiration of said period, if no adverse claim shall have been filed, it shall be the duty of the surveyor general, upon application of the party, to survey the premises and make a 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; and upon the payment to the proper officer of five dollars per acre, together with the cost of such survey, plat, and notice, and giving satisfactory evidence that said diagram and notice have been posted on the claim during said period of ninety days, the register of the land office shall transmit to the General Land Office said plat, survey, and description; and a patent shall issue for the same thereupon. But said plat, survey, or description shall in no case cover more than one vein or lode, and no patent shall issue for more than one vein or lode, which shall be expressed in the patent issued.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That when such location and entry of a mine shall be upon unsurveyed lands, it shall and may be lawful, after the extension thereto of the public surveys, to adjust the surveys to the limits of the premises according to the location and possession and plat aforesaid, and the surveyor general may, in extending the surveys, vary the same from a rectangular form to suit the circumstances of the country and the local rules, laws, and customs of miners: Provided, That 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.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That as a further condition of sale, in the absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the local legislature of any State or Territory may provide rules for working mines involving easements, drainage, and other necessary means to their complete development; and those conditions shall be fully expressed in the patent.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That whenever any adverse claimants to any mine located and claimed as aforesaid shall appear before the approval of the survey, as provided in the third section of this act, all proceedings shall be stayed until a final settlement and adjudication in the courts of competent jurisdiction of the rights of possession to such claim, when a patent may issue as in other cases.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be, and is hereby, authorized to establish additional land districts, and to appoint the necessary officers under existing laws, wherever he may deem the same necessary for the public convenience in executing the provisions of this act. SEC 8. And be it further enacted, That the right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged

by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same; and the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes aforesaid is hereby acknowledged and confirmed. Provided, however: That whenever, after the passage of this act, any person or persons shall, in the coustruction of any ditch or canal, injure or damage the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That wherever. prior to the passage of this act, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have been excluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citizens of the United States, or persons who have declared their intention to become citizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agricultural purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly agricultural lands, the said settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption thereto, and shall be entitled to purchase the same at the price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and in quantity no: to exceed one hundred and sixty acres; or said parties may avail themselves of the provisions of the act of Congress approved May 20, 1862, entitled "An act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," and acts amendatory thereof.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That upon the survey of the lands aforesaid, the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart such portions of the said lands as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall thereafter be subject to pre-emption and sale as other public lands of the United States, and subject to all the laws and regulations applicable to the same.

2. PERMANENT TITLES TO MINERAL LANDS IN THE UNITED STATES.

In glancing back over the history of California for the last eighteen years, we cannot overlook the fact that the State has, for the want of a permanent mining population, lost what would be worth more than a hundred millious of money. The work has been done mostly by men who had no homes, and who did not intend to remain in California. Their enterprises generally were undertaken for the purpose of making the most profit in a brief time. There was no proper care for a distant future; and without such care no society is sound, no State truly prosperous. If a claim could, by hastily washing, be made to pay $10 per day to the hand for three months, or $6 for three years by a careful washing, the hasty washing was preferred. If a fertile valley that would have yielded a revenue of $5 per acre for century after century to a farmer could be made to yield $5 per day to a miner for one summer, its loam was washed away, and a useless and ugly bed of gravel was left in its place. The flumes, the ditches, the dwellings, the roads, and the towns were constructed with almost exclusive regard to immediate wants. The good turnpike roads were private property, on which heavy tolls were levied, so that not unfrequently a gentleman in a one-horse buggy would have to pay $5 or $10 toll in a day's travel. The claims were made small, so that everybody should have a chance to get one; but the pay-dirt was soon exhausted, and then there must be a move. In such a state of affairs miners generally could not send for their families or make elegant homes. Living alone and lacking the influences and amusements of home-life, they became wasteful and wild. Possessing no title to the land, they did nothing to give it value, and were ready to abandon it at any moment. The farmers, merchants, and other fixed residents of the mining counties are agitated and frightened nearly every year by the danger of a migration of the miners to some distant place. One year it is Peru; another it British Columbia, Idaho, Reese river, Pahranagat, or Arizona; and it may ext be Brazil, Liberia, or Central Africa, for all we know.

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The losses to individuals and to the State have been so great from these migrations that for years past there has been an increasing desire for some change in the tenure of mining lands, so that the mining population shall be attached to the soil, and thus have an opportunity and a motive for establishing permanent homes and a personal interest in improving and enriching the country. The act of Congress passed at the last session for the granting of fee-simple titles to lode mines, and to the agricultural lands in the mineral districts, is the beginning of a new and better era in the history of the Pacific coast. So soon as the necessary surveys can be completed, many applications will be made for patents, and in a few years great and beneficial changes will result. Such is the general opinion among the more intelligent miners and public men of the coast. As an indication of the manner in which the news of the passage of the act was received, the following passages are quoted from leading editorials in influential newspapers:

The San Francisco Bulletin, in its issue of July 31st, said:

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"No measure of equal consequence to the material, and, we may add, to the moral interests of the Pacific States, was ever before passed by Congress. * The passage of the bill, whatever defects it may develop when more critically examined and enforced, marks a change in the public land policy equal in importance to the adoption of the pre-emption and homestead system; indeed its practical effect will be to extend the now unquestionable benefits of that system to the vast field of the mineral regions which have hitherto been largely excluded from those benefits. * It was one of the greatest evils of the negative policy of Congress regarding the mineral lands that, while it prevented our own people from acquiring titles to them, it opened their treasures freely to the transient adventurers from abroad, who only came to take them away without leaving any equivalent. As a measure calculated to give homogeneity and fixedness to our population, security to titles, and encouragement to investments of capital and labor, the new mining law is full of promise. We believe it will have the effect also to stimulate exploration and production in the mining districts. Its good features are apparent; its bad ones will appear in time and can be easily remedied."

The Alta Californian of the same date, said:

"The passage of the bill will be regarded in future times as an epoch in the history of the State. It offers a patent to every lode miner who desires it; it opens all the agricultural land in the mineral districts to pre-emption and homestead claims, and it will give secure titles, build up comfortable homes, and fix a large permanent population in the rich mining country of the Pacific slope."

The Mining and Scientific Press, in its issue of the 14th of July, 1866, spoke thus, editorially:

"The papers generally throughout the State (California) and Nevada appear to approve the bill; and so far as we can judge there is a general feeling favorable to its passage, as a necessity for quieting the public mind upon this vexatious question."

The Stockton Independent of January 8, 1866, spoke thus of some of the evils which this bill was designed to cure :

"There are now over one hundred thousand adult men and women in the mines of California and Nevada without homes or the possibility of acquiring them. Shall we let this preposterous rule go on from generation to generation, until from hundreds of thousands this nomadic population amounts up to millions and tens of millions? From the twenty-seventh to the forty-seventh meridian of longitude, and from latitude thirty four to the extremest northern line of the

United States, all is mineral land—all has been prospected and proven to be. such.

Is it the part of wise statesmanship to adopt as a permanent law the rule that the millions who are in the next quarter of a century to occupy this vast area -over one-third of our territory-shall be without homes? Such a thing is horrible to contemplate. Compared with it the anarchy and social demoralization which have reigned in Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish American countries for the last half century are as nothing. The policy is wholly opposed to the instincts and habits of the Anglo Saxon race-opposed to the idea of law and government. It invites the nation to anarchy and offers a premium to crime and pauperism.

It is high time that the rule were changed. All the mineral lands ought to be surveyed in small lots and sold, or at least given away in fee to the occupants. These people should have homes and the means of acquiring permanent property and status as citizens."

The Sacramento Union of the 23d of June said :

"There are many miners who feel as deep an interest in the matter as others who devote themselves exclusively to farming, for prosperous miners, who do not wish to abandon the hills and valleys where they have harvested fortune, have a passion for pretty homes and a blooming ranch. Upon the whole, this bill has been framed with a more intelligent regard for the interests of the people of the Pacific coast than any other previous measure that we can now recall, and it is probable that its provisions can be executed without inflicting injury upon the rights which accrued under the policy hitherto pursued by the government. It is a great stride towards the final adjustment of a dangerous question, and a vast improvement upon the measures broached at Washington at various periods during the past three years."

Governor McCormick, of Arizona, in his annual message delivered to the legislature on the 8th of October, 1866, said:

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The act of Congress to legalize the occupation of mineral lands, and to extend the rights of pre-emption thereto, adopted at the late session, preserves all that is best in the system created by miners themselves, and saves all vested rights under that system, while offering a permanent title to all who desire it, at a mere nominal cost. It is a more equitable and practicable measure than the people of the mineral districts had supposed Congress would adopt, and credit for its liberal and acceptable provisions is largely due to the influence of the representatives of the Pacific coast, including our own intelligent delegate. While it is not without defects, as a basis of legislation it is highly promising, and must lead to stability and method, and so inspire increased confidence and zeal in quartz mining."

The Virginia Enterprise, the leading journal of the State of Nevada, in its issue of July 13, advocating the passage of the bill, said :

"The bill proposes nothing but what already exists, except giving a perfect title to the owners of any mine who may desire it. But the effect of this single title clause, if the bill becomes a law, will be of wonderful benefit to our State. Domestic, and especially foreign capitalists, who have been restrained from investing in our mines on account of the uncertain tenure by which they were held, and the general insecurity of title, will not hesitate to invest when they are guaranteed unmolested and permanent possession by the government. It will give an impetus to prospecting, for discoveries will be salable; to developments and heavy operations generally, for titles will be quiet and secure. will create an unprecedented demand for labor, and inaugurate enduring prosperity throughout the State. The poor and the rich, the workingman and the capitalist, will be equally benefited by it."

H. Ex. Doc. 29-15

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