important in its bearings upon domestic and foreign trade, an industry with which multitudes of our energetic population are identified, and the results of which are essential to the permanent prosperity of the country and are expected, at no distant period, to furnish the necessary metallic basis for the currency of the country.

The gold-mining interests are scattered over a million of square miles and embraced in one thousand five hundred different mineral districts. As the rich placers of gold quartz are not so accessible as in earlier years of exploration, we are admonished of the importance of increasing the product by greater skill and approved methods, the annual loss resulting from unskilled labor in this department of science having been estimated as high as twenty millions of dollars.

We have here an illustration of the necessity of educating a national corps of mining engineers. There is no other plan by which the wasteful methods now prevailing can be checked. Mines which should have lasted for centuries have been ruined, through ignorance, greed, and haste. Many experts engaged in our mines are foreigners. Besides, we send our young men to Germany, France, Hungary, and elsewhere in Europe to be taught this branch of science, when they could be more successfully educated at home if we had institutions equally thorough and comprehensive. The American mining system is quite different from the foreign; hence the necessity of having mineralogists trained on our own soil and acquainted with its peculiarities. The single instance of placer mining is an illustration of the fact. Here it is conducted on a gigantic scale, aided by the ingenuity of mechanical and hydraulic engineering, involving investments in works alone of millions of dollars, while abroad it consists in hand-washing auriferous earth in wooden bowls. Our metallurgic processes, also, have to be constructed and so varied as to suit the ever-changing mineralogical character of the ore. This is the only government of the great powers where mining forms an important source of wealth without a school of mines, mining bureau, or cabinet.

The course of instruction in such an institution should be of a duplex character. As a foundation, the élève should be thoroughly grounded in geology, mineralogy, and chemistry as applied to assaying and metallurgy; then in geometry, drawing, and mechanical instructions, with a view to his duties in metallic and hydraulic engineering. The whole should be supplemented by a knowledge of the French and German languages.

The second part should consist of an experimental application in mineral districts of what has been learned at the institution, the student being required to participate in the sinking of shafts, excavations of tunnels, blasting, assaying, stamping, and other duties incident to the most successful exploitation. In this manner valuable and reliable information will be obtained which cannot be derived in any other way.

In such a course of teaching he will reach the standard of the highest intelligence, become fitted to be intrusted with great mining works, be able to decide nice questions as to the direction of further exploitations, the modification of reducing processes, and generally in the expenditure of the funds of companies by whom he may be employed.

Should such an institution be established at the seat of government, under the eye of the Executive, the ultimate advantages arising from it would be almost incalculable. Here are collected the most important libraries on the continent, and here are found accumulations of natural objects in museums for illustrating this particular subject. At the political capital learned and skillful persons congregate, which, owing to

its geographical position, climate, and general surroundings, is especially adapted to the highest success of such an enterprise.

The establishment of a national school was a favorite project with our first President, which he forcibly stated in an address to the Commissioners of the Federal District in 1795, showing the advantages to the government and the country at large to be be derived from such an institution, using the following language:

"It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. Although there are doubtless many, under these circumstances, who escape the danger of contracting principles unfavorable to republican government, yet we ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems before they are capable of appreciating their own."

In view of the facts submitted herewith, we may safely predict that whatever action might be taken toward founding an institution devoted to mining will ultimately result beneficially to the government in many respects.

PROCEEDINGS TO OBTAIN TITLES UNDER THE MINING ACT OF JULY

26, 1866.

In the second section of the mining act it is provided that whenever any person, or association of persons, claim a vein or lode or quartz or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the same according to the local customs or rules of miners in the district where the same is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvement thereon an amount of 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.

The third section requires a like diagram to be posted in a conspicuous place on the claim, together with notice of intention to apply for patent. A similar notice is to be published by the register in a newspaper nearest the location of the claim; the register being also required to post the same in his office.

These notices are to be posted and published for the period of ninety days, after which, if no adverse interest shall have been filed, it is made the duty of the surveyor general, on application of the party, to survey the premises and make a plat thereof. If no adverse claimant has appeared prior to the surveyor general's approval of the survey, the applicant for patent is authorized to make payment to the United States receiver of public moneys of five dollars per acre, together with the cost of survey, plat, and notice, and furnish satisfactory evidence that the diagram and notice were posted on the claim during the aforesaid period of ninety days. Thereafter it is made the duty of the register of the district land office to transmit to the General Land Office the plat, survey, and description, that a patent may issue thereon.

The claimant may be either an individual or an association of persons; and in pursuance of statutory provisions is required to make his application for a patent at the district land office, and file with such application a diagram of the claim.

The only mineral lands patentable under this act are those bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper; and the only persons entitled to apply for and receive patents are those having previously occupied and improved their claims according to the local customs and rules of miners in the respective mining districts, and who have expended in actual labor and improvements on each claim an amount of not less than one thousand dollars, as hereinbefore indicated.

Conflicting claims to mines or mining lands cannot be adjusted in the land office, but are referred by the express provisions of the act to the courts of competent jurisdiction for determination. Hence, if a controversy exists in regard to the possession of a claim, the adverse interests must first be adjudicated before it is in condition for patenting.

The statutory limit to the time during which an adverse claimant may appear is up to the time of the surveyor general's approval of the survey. If, previous to such approval, an opposing interest is presented at the district land office, further proceedings must be stayed for action in courts competent to determine the rights of the contestants, after which the successful claimant will be entitled to patent.

If no adverse claimant appears before the approval of the survey, there is no authority for suspending proceedings for patent in order to permit an adverse party to file his claim after that, provided the proceedings have been regular and free from fraud. The mining act does. not state in express terms that the application must be in writing, but as official transactions are usually in writing, and much inconvenience might arise from mere verbal applications, the duty of reducing them to writing is implied and held to be necessary.

As the district land officers cannot be presumed to know whether or not an applicant for patent had previously occupied and improved his claim according to the local customs or rules of miners, or whether the diagram conforms to such customs or not, it is held proper that reasonable proof on these points should be filed with the application. This may consist of a certificate of the mining recorder, with a transcript from his records of the original location, with names of locators, and so much of the mining customs as relates to the size of locations or number of feet along the vein authorized to be taken by each locator or company. If the records contain a regular series of conveyances from the original locators to the applicant for a patent, the certificate of the recorder should state that upon diligent search he finds upon the records such regular chain of title, referring to the volumes and pages; should the certificate cover the three points of original location, mining customs, and series of conveyances, constituting a regular chain of title from the locators to the applicant for a patent, no further testimony as to previous occupancy and conformity to mining customs need be furnished.

In the event of the record not furnishing such evidence of title, from any cause whatever, the necessary facts may be established by affidavit, stating the length of time the applicant has occupied and improved the claim, the character of the improvements, and the requirements of the mining customs touching the size of locations at the time they were made. Such affidavit should also explain the absence of record evidence.

In either event, whether the proof consists of a certificate of the recorder, or an affidavit of persons familiar with the facts, the expense and trouble of furnishing it must be trifling.

The applicant should also file with his application and diagram a copy of the notice posted on the claim, that it may appear to the land officers that it meets the requirements of the statute.

If the parties applying for patent are an incorporated company, evidence of that fact being produced by filing with the application a certified copy of the charter or act of incorporation, no proof of citizenship will be required.

On the other hand, if the applicants are not incorporated, one or more affidavits will be necessary to prove that they are citizens of the United States, or have filed declarations of intention to become citizens. Such affidavits may be made by the applicants themselves, and the necessary facts should be fully set out as to place of birth, the court in which declaration of intention was filed, and the date of such filing.

The papers proper to be filed with the application are therefore, first, the diagram; second, a copy of the notice posted on the claim; third, a certified copy of the charter, or act of incorporation, or, if applicants are not incorporated, an affidavit of citizenship, or of filing declaration of intention to become citizens; fourth, a certificate of the mining recorder, or, in lieu thereof, an affidavit as to occupancy and improvement according to mining customs.

These documents being satisfactory to the register and receiver, no further testimony is required from the applicant until after the approval of the survey by the surveyor general, and the filing of the plat and survey in the district land office, when the further testimony must be furnished that the notice and diagram were posted on the claim during the period of ninety days. This proof may also be presented in the form of an affidavit, and it would be well to include in this affidavit a statement that according to surface indications, or any facts within the knowledge of claimants, or other persons familiar with the claim, the premises included in the plat and survey contain but one vein or lode, inasmuch as no patent is to issue for more than one vein or lode. Evidence as to the value of the improvements and character of the vein exposed is furnished by the surveyor general by indorsement upon the plat.

These proceedings, it would appear, can neither be expensive nor complicated. All the documents may be prepared by the applicants, or by any person of ordinary intelligence.

The application should state all the facts necessary to entitle claimant to apply for patent: such as having previously occupied and improved the claim according to local mining customs; having expended thereon in actual labor and improvements an amount of not less than one thousand dollars; that the mine is one producing either gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper; that applicant has posted diagram and notice in a conspicuous place on the premises as required by law; that the applicants are an incorporated company, or, if such is not the case, that they are citizens, or have filed declaration of intention to become citizens, and that a diagram of the claim is filed with the application. It should always contain a description of the premises as represented in the diagram.

OF THE EARLY PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE UNITED STATES MINING LAW.

During the first eighteen months after the passage of this enactment by Congress, delay occurred from want of familiarity on the part of the occupants of mines, and also in the local administration, in regard to the proceedings required. This inconvenience was at first unavoidable, and is not unusual in the execution of new enactments. It is now in great measure removed by the adoption of a system of rules, after a careful and thorough analysis of the subject, by which the liberal intentions of the framers of the law are being realized.

In some of the earlier cases reported it was brought to light that claims might be asserted, under new names, to old mines having expensive improvements thereon, without the knowledge of the real owners, in consequence of the notices being published and posted during their temporary absence, or, in remote and unoccupied districts, during the suspension in winter of mining operations.

The only way to prevent occasional acts of injustice in issuing patents to parties not entitled to them under the law is to require every claimant to file with his application some appropriate evidence of his possessory title under the local rules or customs of miners in the district in which his claim lies.

EFFECT OF THE LOCAL MINING CUSTOMS AND LAWS.

It was evidently the intention of the framers of the mining act not only to recognize the validity of these local mining customs and laws, and rights acquired under them, but to interfere as little as possible with them; and in administering the act this policy is steadily kept in view in this office, and patents are only issued to claimants holding the possessory right under and by virtue of such mining regulations.

In some of the States and Territories these local customs and rules of miners are enacted by the miners themselves, at miners' meetings, and observed as rules in their respective districts. In other cases the legislatures of the States and Territories have passed general laws prescribing rules by which all the miners in the several districts are governed.

It has been insisted sometimes that territorial legislatures have no power to pass laws limiting mining claims, for the reason that the organic laws of such territories inhibit such legislation from interfering in any way with the primary disposal of the soil, and that the mining actof Congress recognizes not these enactments of State or territorial assembly, but the customs of the miners themselves.

It is held by the Commissioner that a State or territorial enactment regulating a mere possessory claim is in no way in conflict with the congressional enactment, but is in subordination to the constitutional power of Congress to deal as may seem most proper with regard to the disposal of the national domain, whether mineral or agricultural; and even if there were in fact any interference by a territorial act with the primary disposal of the soil, it was perfectly competent for Congress, by subsequent legislation, such as the mining act, to legalize the same, even though it were at variance with territorial organic law; and as the mining law extends the privilege of applying for a patent only to such as have previously occupied and improved their claims according to the local customs and rules of miners in the respective districts, the congressional enactment evidently recognizes the binding force of such rules.

With regard to the point sometimes made that the mining act recognizes only the regulations adopted by the miners themselves, and not the enactments of the territorial legislature, it is replied that the question as to how or by whom the rules or customs were passed or enacted is not at all involved.

The real point is, what are the regulations by which the miners in the several districts determine the validity of claims; what body of rules are applied to them when questions of conflict come before the local courts; and what laws are appealed to in cases where records are made or notices filed with the mining recorder, or when forfeitures are declared. The regulations controlling in such cases are the rules recognized by the