not exceed two hundred and fifty feet in width on each side of the middle of the surface or outcrop of the said vein or lode, and the patent therefor shall grant the right also to all other veins or lodes within the said tract. When the grant of said two hundred and fifty feet would include another claim, duly located prior to the day of 1870, the patent shall cover only half the width between the two claims; but claims located after the day of —, 1870, shall not prevent the issuing of patent for the full width of the tract herein allowed: Provided, That the owners of adjoining claims, each of which is entitled to a patent, may unite their claims and receive a single patent for a continuous tract covering all the claims, and not exceeding in size the amount of the tracts to which they would be separately entitled. SEC. 2. Proof of due publication of notice of intention to apply for a patent furnished to the register of the land office shall be considered equivalent to the said publication by the register, as provided in section 3 of the act to which this act is amendatory. SEC. 3. Any person or association of persons claiming an alluvial deposit, placer, gravel, or cement mine or digging, or an impregnation, segregation, or aggregation of ore irregular in form, and without defined walls or limits, containing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, and having complied with the conditions expressed in sections 2 and 3 of the act to which this act is amendatory, shall be entitled to a patent for the same, covering a tract not exceeding the area of - feet, and granting the right to all the minerals within the said tract, without the right to follow the mineral deposit into the land adjoining. SEC. 4. Patents of the class described in the foregoing section may be granted for any kind of deposit of the said metals or their ores, on application of the proper claimants; but patents granting the right to follow the mineral into the land adjoining shall only be granted on claims in which at least one vein or lode of quartz or other rock in place has been exposed, and only on the certificate of the mineral land surveyor executing the survey that the said vein or lode is so exposed: Provided, That the proprietors of adjoining claims, or the applicants for patents themselves, may, before the patent is issued, appeal from the decision of the mineral land surveyor as to the character of the deposit, and all proceedings shall be stayed until the question shall be decided by a court of competent jurisdiction, whether the said deposit is a vein or lode within the reasonable meaning of the term, and the claimant is fairly entitled to the right to follow it into the land adjoining. SEC. 5. In order to establish the title of a claimant to any tract of mineral land for which a patent is asked, the following conditions shall be required: The record of location shall contain such a description of the claim by measurements from natural landmarks, or permanent monuments, that its precise locality may be at any time identified: Provided, That records of location made previous to the day of 1870, may be amended to conform with this condition at any time previous to the day of -, 1871. Proof shall be furnished to the register of the land office that twenty-four days of faithful labor have been performed upon the claim described in the record in each year, subsequent to the date of location and before the day of in each year, and the said proof shall consist of a certificate from the recorder of deeds of the county, declaring that oath has been duly made in each year by the owner of a claim, or his or their authorized representative, that the said labor has been performed: Provided, That, in lieu of the performance of the said labor, it shall be lawful for the owner of any claim to pay to the United States revenue collector of the district, day of for on or before the in each year, the sum of the claim described in the record, and not exceeding the amount for which a patent may be granted; and in case of such payment the receipt of the collector shall be sufficient proof to the register of the land office: And provided further, That the failure to perform such labor or to make such payment in lieu thereof, shall not prevent the claimant from making good his title at any time for the purpose of obtaining a patent, by the payment of for each and every year of default, unless the claim shall have been located, recorded, and occupied by other parties during the time of such default. And, in general, every failure to comply with the conditions of this act shall prevent the party so tailing to comply from interfering with the rights of other parties, accruing during the period of his default; but any such failure to comply with the conditions of this act may be made good by subsequent compliance therewith so far as the rights of other parties accruing during the period of such failure or default shall allow. SEC. 6. The money received under this act by United States revenue collectors shall be appropriated as follows: per cent. to the collector for his services in collecting the same; one-half of the remainder to the State or territory within which the mining district is situated, as a fund for the maintenance of a mining school, or the execution of geological surveys, for which sum the receipt of the treasurer of the said State or Territory shall be sufficient voucher for the collector. The remainder shall go to the treasury of the United States, and shall be divided into two equal parts; one part to be called the national mining school fund, and devoted to the establishment and maintenance of a national school of mines; and the other part to be called the mining survey fund, and devoted to the promotion of the interests of the mining industry in equalizing the expense of surveys made necessary by this act and the act to which it is amendatory, and in such other ways as Congress shall determine. SEC. 7. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed. MINERAL DEPOSITS. CHAPTER LX. CLASSIFICATION. The principal useful minerals obtained by mining are gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, tin, quicksilver, zinc, antimony, bismuth, arsenic, nickel, cobalt, iron, manganese, graphite, anthracite, pit-coal, lignite, bituminous shale, peat, rock-salt, sulphur, alum-slate, barytes, gypsum, eryolite, precious stones, building-stones, and ice. The various liquid mineral products, such as brine, petroleum, and mineral waters, should, perhaps, also be included. The term mineral deposits, though in common use, is not very happily chosen to define bodies of these useful minerals; for, on one hand, every rock is a mineral deposit, and, on the other hand, this name is frequently applied to a particular class of occurrences as distinguished from fissureveins. I retain the phrase, however, in accordance with general usage. Most of the minerals above enumerated are widely disseminated through the solid crust of the earth. It is only those accumulations or concentrations of them which can be practically utilized that receive this name and become the objects of mining. Mineral deposits are classified according to their form, position, and probable origin. The first general distinction is made between exposed or superficial and inclosed or subterranean deposits. Superficial deposits comprise deposits of debris (alluvial or drift deposits formed of the accumulated fragments of older rocks, such as gold and tin placers, gravel and cement mines, &c.) and surface deposits found in situ, (such as bogiron ores, peat moors, salt, soda and saltpeter beds, and the coast depos its of amber. Occasionally a deposit originally inclosed is exposed by erosion of the overlying rocks, as, for instance, the vein of the Red Mountain Company at Silver Peak, Nevada, which is a fissure-vein from which the hanging wall forming the side of a mountain has been almost entirely carried away by disintegration and aqueous action. As this scarcely justifies us in calling such a deposit a superficial one, so, on the other hand, a few feet of overlying soil does not convert a superficial deposit into an inclosed one. The distinction, like others to be hereafter mentioned, is broad and convenient, but not minutely accurate. Inclosed or subterranean deposits comprise three great classes, distinguished, according to their form, as tabular or sheet deposits, mass deposits, and irregular segregations or aggregations. I must repeat that these distinctions are not sharply drawn and at all times to be recognized in practice. The degree to which they are founded in nature will be indicated presently. Under sheet deposits are ranked such as possess two predominant dimensions, while the third, called the thickness, is comparatively small, so that we may speak of them as having a general plane or sheet. It is also understood that the surfaces bounding such a deposit on two sides have a general, though not mathematically exact, parallelism; they constitute its walls or its roof and floor, according to its position. The deposits of this class are divided, according to their |