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claims are larger than they should be. This is mainly due to the fact that the procedure that has been prescribed is so unnecessarily complicated and antiquated that the services of a lawyer are generally required. This defect can be cured without legislation. The preparation of patent papers should be placed in the hands of the local land office officials, and no charge made for the work. Advertising and surveying costs should be reduced, also the price of the land, and payment for the same by installments should be made possible.

There is need of legislation in connection with tunnel rights. There is nothing in the law providing for their reversion to the public domain after abandonment. Many enterprises of this kind, started for drainage, transportation, or discovery purposes have been idle for years, with owners dead or unknown, or unable to continue work or even keep up repairs. For such property it is often impossible to obtain clear title, or to compel the record owner or his assigns to resume work or to sell at a reasonable price. In the matter of mill sites the law should be changed so that only surface rights could be obtainable under that form of claim.

The author is not in favor of the abolition of the apex and extralateral rights doctrine for reasons given in Chapter XIV, but can see good cause for modifying it so that the right would attach only to the vein or deposit first discovered, and upon which the location was made, the pursuit of all other veins subsequently found to be limited by vertical boundary lines. This would be no hardship on the original discoverer, and would simplify matters greatly for adjoining owners. Discovery by borehole should be distinctly legalized.

The rules for the staking of claims could be much improved without legislation, and without adding unduly to the obligations of the prospector. The method prescribed in the French Guiana law for this act is worthy of consideration, as it not only tends to the installation of monuments of much greater permanency, but makes their removal or migration a matter of greater difficulty. Several of the Canadian provinces have most excellent

rules for this act, which is generally very carelessly performed by the American locator, entailing uncertainty or confusion later on if clearly defined original lines ever become of importance.

In all changes that may be made in the Federal law the prospector and the miner should be given the opportunity to express themselves. There are plenty of men who are now or who have been in the past actual explorers and diggers, with ideas worth listening to, and with the ability to state them. It should not be forgotten that the law as it now stands was framed by just such people, and that for nearly 70 years the industry has been operated under its provisions with magnificent results. It is their right to be consulted, and it will pay to listen attentively to what they may have to say.

CHAPTER XX

MISCELLANEOUS HISTORICAL NOTES

In Canada mining began in 1857; in British Columbia, which was first entered and explored by the pioneers who poured into California, in 1849 and 1850, and who, from San Francisco and Portland as bases, spread up the coast and into the interior everywhere in search of gold. One of the great alluvial centers discovered during this movement was known as the Caribou district, around the head waters of the Frazer river. In 1863, when at its best, this field yielded nearly $4,000,000 in gold. From that maximum the output steadily declined until in 1893 it amounted to less than $400,000. During the years of depression the prospectors that still remained in the country, reinforced by others from Washington, Idaho, and Montana, swarmed over the region, and a great number of lodes and deposits of silver, lead, and copper ore were discovered, as well as some carrying more or less gold, so that by 1900 the output of the first two metals was amounting in value to nearly $5,000,000 per annum, while that of copper had reached $1,750,000.

During this period of discovery and development mining was conducted under District laws practically identical with those of the United States, but in 1897 they were repealed, and in their place a law was enacted based largely upon the principles adopted in eastern Canada.

In 1887 nickel ore was discovered by railroad graders at Sudbury in the western part of the province of Ontario. In 1897 very rich alluvial gold deposits were found by American prospectors in the valley of the Klondyke river and some of its tributaries. The region was at first thought to be within the limits of Alaska. When that was shown to be an error, prospecting ceased.

In 1905 railroad graders discovered the silver lodes of Cobalt in the northern part of Ontario, and in 1909 the Porcupine gold district was found by hunters. All three became notable in the production of the metals named and still continue so, except the Klondyke, where the cream has been skimmed and the country is now in the hands of dredging companies who are maintaining a handsome though steadily decreasing output. No lode mining of any importance has come into existence in this region.

During the quarter century which witnessed these three important discoveries the regions in which they were made were operating under the provisions of a general Dominion Mining Law which clung-with slight modifications-to the general principles enunciated in the British Columbian law of 1897.

In Australia gold mining began in 1851 in the provinces of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and by 1858 the industry had spread into Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and by 1892 into Western Australia. Mining for other metals did not become important until 1882, but by 1891 had exceeded the gold output in value, and has maintained this prominence ever since.

In the early days of the industry in all these British colonies except Western Australia, the only law that existed was in the form of District regulations enacted by the miners themselves, which had to do mainly with alluvial gold deposits, and werein the main very similar to those which originated among the miners in California. At first these were of the simplest kind, but auriferous quartz veins were quickly found by the prospectors, who then (in 1858) added to their rules the American doctrine of the apex and extralateral right, applying it to all forms of mineral deposits occurring in rock in place. As in America, the practice produced much litigation, and instead of holding to the principle the Australians decided in 1866 to abandon it.

In considering the beginnings of mining law in these colonies it is to be remembered that, unlike the conditions that prevailed

in western America at the time of the California gold discoveries, where the country was entirely unoccupied except by Indians in the interior and Mexicans along the Coast, Australian settlement by whites began in 1788 with the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay, in what is now the province of New South Wales, and that during the years between that date and 1858 very considerable areas had been granted to individuals and corporations for agriculture, grazing, and coal mining purposes. As parts of these areas proved, in the years between 1851 and 1858 to include not only very rich alluvial gold deposits, but regions highly seamed with gold-bearing quartz veins, the doctrine of the apex had to contend with many conditions not found in California and other parts of our West. For while in some of their grants the government had definitely reserved in the deeds the undiscovered but suspected minerals underneath, and in others had as definitely granted them, in perhaps the majority of cases the subject was not referred to at all, or else in so ambiguous and indefinite a way as to require adjudication in the courts. Hence the doctrine added a new difficulty to a problem already sufficiently complicated, and when it was abandoned in 1866 the reason was, confessedly, more to relieve the industry from a possible heavy load of future litigation, than to eliminate any other bad effect already produced. In fact, while it was in force, this doctrine caused, as was the case in America and western Canada, an era of intense and vigorous discovery, and when it was abandoned this era came to an end (as has been the case in British Columbia), although in Australia the prospectors continued active for a number of years in those parts of the continent where little or none of the land had been alienated for agricultural or grazing purposes, and brought in several new districts of importance, the most notable of which was that of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

The settlement of New Zealand began in 1840. The first discovery of gold took place in 1852 near Coromandel, but was of small importance. In 1857 the metal was found in payable quantities at Nelson, and in 1858 a specific gold field act was