S. at page 445), say: "It often happens that for the development of a mine upon which several claims have been located, expenditures are required exceeding the value of a single claim, and yet without such expenditures the claim could not be successfully worked. In such cases it has always been the practice for the owners of different locations to combine and to work them as one general claim; and expenditures which may be necessary for the development of all the claims may be then made as one of them. The law does not apply to cases where several claims are held in common, and all the expenditures made are not for the development of one of them, without reference to the development of the others. In other words, the law permits a general system to be adopted for adjoining claims held in common, and in such case the expenditures required may be made, or the labor performed, upon any one of them."

In a later case the same Court approves of these decisions, and explains the policy of the mines anterior to congressional legislation on the subject of mining and the mineral lands; and then states the Government policy, and adds:

"When several claims are held in common, it is in the line of this policy to allow the necessary work to keep them all alive, to be done on one of them. But obviously on this one the expenditures of money or labor must equal in value that which would be required on all the claims if they were separate or independent. It is equally clear that in such case the claims must be contiguous, so that each claim thus associated may in some way be benefited by the work done on one of them."

The money expended in running a tunnel for the development of a lode or lodes by the owner or owners will be taken and considered as expended on the lode or lodes. (U. S. Rev. Stat., Sec. 2324.)

It is well to remember that the work and improvement annually required to be done on a mining location, must relate to its development in a mining sense. To build reduction works or mills for crushing quartz would be with

in the purview of the policy of the Government, to encourage, mining on its public lands and the extraction of its precious metal; while the erection of buildings for trade and commerce would not. Neither would the cultivation of the surface of the ground into fields of waving grain, or orchards of golden fruit, meet the requirement of labor and improvement on the claim in the sense of the act of Congress. It must be labor and improvement intended to aid, if not actually resulting in, the production of the metallic wealth in the ground.

NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE BLACK HILLS.

BY WALTER P. JENNEY, G. M., IN 1876.

WATER.

To a settler in a new country no question is of greater importance than the purity and abundance of the supply of water; and in this respect the Black Hills are unequaled by any region in the "Great West."

A glance at the map shows, by the innumerable branches. of the creeks and the intricate nature of the topography, that it is an extremely well-watered country. Springs are found in almost every ravine. Nearly all the small head branches of the creeks are running brooks of pure water; and streams of considerable size, and but a few miles apart, drain this region, affording a constant and regular supply of water for both stock-raising and mining purposes.

The creeks which drain the gold-fields rise in numerous small springs, issuing from the granite and metamphoric rocks, and the water is consequently remarkably pure and free from mineral or organic matter. Those branches which head in the great Carboniferous limestone, yield water suitable for most domestic purposes, the only drawback being a slight" hardness" due the presence of carbonate of lime, which does not in the least affect the health of those using it.

Only among the foot-hills, where the gypsum of the Red Beds or the "alkali" derived from the Jurassic and Cretaceous shales has contaminated the streams draining these formations, is the water found to be unfit for cooking purposes, and possessing purgative properties. Elsewhere throughout the whole area of the Black Hills included within the timber-line at the edge of the surrounding plains the water both of the springs and running streams is clear,

cold, delicious to the taste, and extremely healthy. Early in June the temperature of the springs at the head of the Floral Valley was found to be 39° F., the elevation being 6,600 feet above the sea. In midsummer the water of a number of springs in the interior of the Hills was tested with an accurate thermometer, and found to vary between 42° and 44° F. After August 1, the past summer, the volume of all the streams in the Black Hills was somewhat diminished by the partial cessation of the heavy rains, but none of the creeks stopped running, except that portion of French creek above the Stockade, where the springs supplying the water are small and the grade very slight. From the character of the geological formations outcropping in the foot-hills and along the edge of the plains, all the streams rising in the Black Hills sink in their beds and disappear before passing through the belt of Carboniferous limestone, with the exception of Rapid creek, which flows into the Cheyenne, and Spearfish and Redwater, which empty into the Belle Fourche. Large springs of good cold water burst out from under the Triassic Limestone in the Red Beds at intervals along the inner rim of the broad Red Valley encircling the Black Hills. These springs will be very valuable to the future stock-raisers in this region, affording watering-places for the stock grazing in the open plains or among the foot-hills.

Spearfish and Redwater pour united a large volume of excellent water into the Belle Fourche, but the shales of the Cretaceous formation through which the river flows soon contaminate the water with alkali, giving it a slightly unpleasant taste, and causing it the past autumn to seriously affect the health of the escort. Probably at other seasons the water of the Belle Fourche deserves its name and reputation, but at the time we were camped on its banks. (September 20) the stream was comparatively low and the water contained its maximum of impurities. The South Fork of the Cheyenne is like most of the rivers in the plains, shallow, with a moderate current flowing through a broad, level bottom, yet subject to sudden rise in spring

and early summer.

In places it cannot be forded on account of quicksands, even when the river is so low that the water is but a few inches deep.

The water of the Cheyenne is full of suspended mud, and contains traces of alkali derived from clays along its banks.

SOIL.

There is no better way to judge of the fertility of the soil of a new and unsettled region, where the rain-fall is abundant, than to examine the growth and character of the vegetation which it supports.

The Black Hills are an oasis of verdure among the open and level plains. A luxuriant growth of grass spreads over the whole region; even on the rocky hill-sides grass is found growing in the crevices in the rocks wherever there is a particle of soil for its support. A heavy forest covers the greater portion of this area, the trees growing thickly together and attaining full size, not only on the rich bottom-lands of the valleys but on the tops of the level limestone "messas ;" and the steep rocky ridges are clothed with pine of good size to their very crests. The soil on the main divides and ridges is not so deep as it is in the parks and valleys which have received the wash from the neighboring hill-sides, and these elevated tracts, being most valuable for grazing purposes, will not be used for cultivation.

Even a casual examination shows that the soil of the valleys, the broad swales of the parks, and the bottom-lands along the creeks is exceedingly rich and deep, being a dark colored loam, resulting from the decomposition of the granite, limestone, and schistose rocks occupying the central area of the Hills. Often in sinking prospecting-pits along the valleys in search of gold, the soil would be found to be a black peaty loam from 2 to 3 feet in thickness, and frequently in the bottom-lands the soil was 4 feet in depth, resting on a gravelly subsoil.

In the parks and along the elevated limestone divide, near