Since May 10, 1872, 1,500 Feet has been the wellknown limit of a lode. This number of feet constitutes one undivided claim, or one lode as the word is commonly used-that is, so much of a vein as is covered by one location based upon a single discovery and in practice so much of one vein as is known by a single name and covered by a single record. The length of 1,500 feet is the uniform, length wherever the mining acts are in force. A State Statute could not shorten this length in opposition to the positive permission of the Act of Congress above printed. It is the length almost invariably expressed in the location certificate and is rarely shortened except where only a fraction of clear ground remains to be taken up.

Length-How Distributed.

This length, by common usage, is taken 750 feet on each side of center of discovery; but it may be taken all on one side except enough to include the discovery shaft itself, or it may be distributed in any desired proportion from the center of the discovery shaft.

Location of Excessive Length.

The import of the decisions on this point seems to be that an inadvertent over-stepping of the legal length will not avoid the claim; Richmond Co. v. Rose, 114 U. S. 576; Burke v. McDonald, 17 M. R. 325; 33 Pac. 49; Hanson v. Fletcher, S7 Pac. 480; but that the claim as to the excess is void; Hauswirth v. Butcher, 4 Mont. 299; Gohres v. Illinois Co. 67 Pac. 666; McPherson v. Julius, 95 N. W. 428; and that a gross excess (1,763 instead of 1,500 feet) made without excuse will defeat the whole location.-Leggatt v. Stewart, 15 M. R. 358; 5 Mont. 107.

An excess staking in length or width does not invalidate, except as to the excess, when made without fraud (in this case by stepping the lines) and the mistake has been corrected before the rights of third parties attached.-Stem-Winder Co. v. Emma Co. 21 Pac. 1040.

But where the excess was such that the end stakes I could not be found on search within several hundred feet the location is not valid.-Ledoux v. Forester, 94 Fed. 600.

WIDTH OF LODE CLAIM LOCATED BEFORE MAY 10, 1872.

Indefinite Under A. C. 1866.

*

Sec. 4.-No location hereafter made shall exceed two hundred feet * together with a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient working of the same, as fixed by local rules.-A. C. July 26, 1866. Repealed May 10, 1872.

Colorado 50-Foot Act of 1866.

Sec. 4.-On all mineral lodes or veins of gold-bearing ores, or of silver or other valuable minerals in this Territory, the owner or owners of all such deposits shall, by virtue of priority of discovery, be deemed and held to be the owner or owners of all spurs, off-shoots, dips, angles, feeders, cross or parallel veins of any character or name whatsoever, lying and being within the limits of twenty-five feet in either direction from the center of said first discovered lode or vein.-Feb. 9, 1866.

The district rules usually allowed a surface width of fifty feet; sometimes more, often less. The Act of February 9, 1866, made twenty-five feet on each side of the center of the vein the width of the claim by implication only, and yet was generally construed as restricting width of claims throughout Colorado; and this was the only mention of the subject in the Colorado Statutes prior to 1874.

The A. C. 1866 allowed a "reasonable quantity" of surface, but the Territorial Statute of the same year was taken as fixing the amount as above stated, at fifty feet.

In the other States and Territories the width was almost invariably, as it still is in some of them, fixed by district regulation alone, without reference to the subject by the legislature.-Parley's Park Co. v. Kerr, 17 M. R. 201; 130 U. S. 256.

Prior to the Act of Congress of 1872, the width of claims had been considered merely as a question of sufficient surface for convenient working.

WIDTH OF LODE CLAIM SINCE MAY 10, 1872.

Limits Allowed by Present U. S. Law.

R. S. Sec. 2320. ** No claim shall extend more than three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, nor shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation 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 tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, render such limitation necessary. The end-lines of each claim shall be parallel to each other.Sec 2, A. C. May 10, 1872.

Present Width Fixed by Colorado Statute.

M. A. S. Sec. 3149.-The width of lode claims hereafter located in Gilpin, Clear Creek, Boulder and Summit counties, shall be seventy-five feet on each side of the center of the vein or crevice; and in all other counties the width of the same shall be one hundred and fifty feet on each side of the center of the vein or crevice: Provided, That hereafter any county may, at any general election, determine upon a greater width not exceeding three hundred feet on each side of the center of the vein or lode, by a majority of the legal votes cast at said election, and any county by such vote at such election may determine upon a less width than above specified.-Feb. 13, 1874. In force June 15, 1874.

Between May, 1872, and June, 1874.

Between May 10, 1872, when the Congressional section in regard to width was passed, and June 15, 1874, when the Colorado Act took effect, the width of all lode claims remained fixed at fifty feet under the Territorial Act of 1866, printed on page 17.

Colorado, 300 Feet Except in Certain Counties.

The A. C. of 1872, having allowed to the locator all the veins within the side lines of his claim, gave at once to the question of width an importance before unknown. The Legislature having in their power to choose between the extreme width of 600

feet and the minimum width of fifty feet, a great difference of opinion resulted in that State, citizens of the older mining counties generally contending for a narrow width, while in the new districts a much greater width was desired; after great debate it was fixed at 150 feet for Gilpin, Clear Creek, Boulder and Summit counties, and at 300 feet in all other counties.

No instance is known to the author of any attempt in any county, to change the width by an election held under the proviso of M. A. S. Sec. 3149; and the constitutionality of any such proceeding, if attempted, would admit of very great doubt.

All the Other States and Territories allow the full limit of 600 feet width, except where the district rules fix a narrower limit, which they rarely now purport to do; and except also North Dakota, which fixes the width at 300 feet, allowing counties to increase or decrease it within the Congressional limit. Center of Vein, Center of Claim.

It will be observed that the center of the lode is made the center of this width. If, therefore, a party attempt to locate more than half the extreme width on either side of his vein, the location of such excess is without the authority of law, although the entire width be within the statutory limit.-Taylor v. Parenteau, 23 Colo. 368.

By Statute, in Wyoming, the discovery shaft must be equi-distant from the side lines of the claim.

Location of Excessive Width.

The Surveyor-General will not issue an order for survey for patent upon a location certificate which claims, in terms, on its face, more than the total width allowed or with an excess of more than onehalf of the legal width on either side of the center of the discovery vein, and it is doubtful whether any court would receive such certificate in evidence. Such mistakes are the work of surveyors who undertake to put their field notes into the form of a lo

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cation certificate in total ignorance of what constitutes a valid location certificate. This document should be drawn by a competent attorney.

But there is nothing to prevent a location of one-half the statutory width on one side the center of the vein and less than one-half on the other side of such center line.

A location of excessive width is not void and a second location can not on such pretense take in the actual workings of the first party.-McIntosh v. Price, 121 Fed. 716.

Excess by Vein Approaching Side Line.

It is true that it may not be known when the stakes are set what the course of the lode may be, and honest errors in this respect may readily be committed; but the vein being the basis of location, and it having been decided that when a vein leaves the side lines of its location, the claim both as to veins and surface beyond that point is void, it necessarily follows, where either side line is found at any point to be more than the legal distance from the center of the vein, that the location of such excess in width has not been based upon a vein lying within the statutory limits, and comes within the same reasoning which renders all that portion of the location void in which no vein is found.-Patterson v. Hitchcock, 5 M. R. 542. But no such fact would vitiate any part of the claim after patent issued.-Peabody Co. v. Gold Hill Co. 97 Fed. 657.