to the limits of the premises according to the location and possession and plat aforesaid; and the Surveyor-General may, in extending the surveys, vary the same from a rectangular form to suit the circumstances of the country and the local rules, laws, and customs of miners: Provided, That no location hereafter made shall exceed two hundred feet in length along the vein for each locator, with an additional claim for discovery to the discoverer of the lode, with the right to follow such vein to any depth, with all its dips, variations, and angles, together with a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient working of the same, as fixed by local rules: And provided further, That no person may make more than one location on the same lode, and not more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by any association of persons.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That as a further condition of sale, in the absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the local Legislature of any State or Territory may provide rules for working mines involving easements, drainage, and other necessary means to their complete development; and those conditions shall be fully expressed in the patent.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That whenever any adverse claimants to any mine located and claimed as aforesaid shall appear before the approval of the survey, as provided in the third section of this act, all proceedings shall be stayed until a final settlement and adjudication in the courts of competent jurisdiction of the rights of possession to such claim, when a patent may issue as in other cases.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be, and is hereby authorized to establish additional land districts, and to appoint the necessary officers under existing laws, wherever he may deem the same necessary for the public convenience in executing the provisions of this act.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That whenever by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufactur ing, or other purposes, have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same; and the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes aforesaid is hereby acknowledged and confirmed: Provided, however, That whenever, after the passage of this act, any person or persons shall, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injure or damage the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That wherever, prior to the passage of this act, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have been excluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citizens of the United States, or persons who have declared their intention to become citizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agricultural purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly agricultural lands, the said settlers

or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption thereto, and shall be entitled to purchase the same at the price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and in quantity not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres; or said parties may avail themselves of the provisions of the act of Congress approved May twenty, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, entitled "An act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," and acts amendatory thereof.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That upon the survey of the lands aforesaid, the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart such portions of the said lands as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall thereafter be subject to pre-emption and sale as other public lands of the United States, and subject to all the laws and regulations applicable to the same.

Approved July 26th, 1866.

THE COAL AND MINERAL RESOURCES

OF THE

UNITED STATES.

THE following statements in regard to the mineral wealth of the country, are extracted from advance sheets of the Commissioner's Annual Report of the General Land Office, for 1867, for which the writer makes due acknowledgment.

From 1830 until 1861, mining was regularly carried on in Virginia, and from $50,000 to $100,000 annually received at the mint from that State, the whole amount deposited up to the year 1866 being $1,570,182 82, the first deposit of $2500 having been made in 1829. The gold belt in Virginia is from fifteen to twenty miles in width, and thus far developed chiefly in the counties of Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange, Spottsylvania, Louisa, Fluvanna, Goochland, Buckingham, Campbell, and Pittsylvania.

Gold was known to exist in North Carolina before the commencement of the present century, a good-sized nugget having been found in Cabarrus county in 1799, and another afterwards, weighing twenty-eight pounds avoirdupois. In the same locality it is estimated that over a hundred pounds were collected prior to 1830, in pieces each over one pound in weight. In the adjoining counties lumps were found weighing from one to sixteen pounds. From 1804 to 1827 North Carolina furnished all the gold of the United States, amounting, according to the mint returns, to $110,000. Up to the year 1866 the state deposited at the mint $9,278,627 67. The counties in which mining has been conducted are Rockingham, Guilford, Davidson, Rowan, Cabarrus, Rutherford, and Mecklenburg. Previous to 1825 the metal had been obtained from washings, but in that year auriferous vein stones were discovered and six hundred and twenty five ounces of gold obtained by rock mining, after which other leads were found in most of the counties above named.

In 1829 $3500 were deposited at the mint from South Carolina, and from 1830 to 1861 mining was prosecuted in that state with varying success. In 1852 the Dorn mine was opened in the Ab

beville district, and in a little more than a year produced $300,000 worth of gold by the aid of a single Chilian mill worked by two mules. The total deposit from this state amounts to $1,353,663 98. The whole northwestern part of South Carolina contains gold, but the districts in which it has been mainly developed are Abbeville, Pickens, Spartanburg, Union, York, and Lancaster.

In 1830 $212,000 were received from Georgia as the first contribution of its mines, which from that date to 1861 yielded a product of $6,971,681 50. The whole of the state lying along the base of the Blue Ridge has been found more or less auriferous, but the counties in which mining has been principally conducted are Carroll, Cobb, Cherokee, Lumpkin, and Habersham.

Gold has been found in Tennessee and Alabama, but the quantity has been small, the whole amount deposited from the former state since 1828 being only $81,406 75, and from the latter şince 1838, $201,734 83.

Efforts are now being made to develop the quartz veins of the southern states with the aid of the improvements in mining found to be effective in California and elsewhere.

But the most important gold fields of the United States and of the world are found in the states and territories extending from the northern to the southern boundaries of the republic, and from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern spurs and outlines of the Rocky Mountains, embracing an area of more than a million of square miles.

OHIO.-The coal fields in the eastern and southeastern portions of this state cover an area of 12,000 square miles, extending through twenty counties, and embrace nearly one-third of the area of the whole state, it being estimated that the county of Tuscarawas alone is underlaid with an amount equal to eighty thousand millions of bushels. Iron ore of very superior quality for the finer castings is found in several counties in the southern bend of the Ohio, covering an area of 1200 square miles, and has already laid the foundation of a very extensive iron interest in the southern part of the state. In the northern part the furnaces are supplied with ore from the Lake Superior mines.

Large quantities of salt are manufactured for market.

Many oil wells have been sunk in the southeastern portion, and large quantities of oil have been exported.

In 1860, according to the estimates of the commissioner of statistics for the state, 50,000,000 bushels of coal were mined, and 2,000,000 bushels of salt manufactured. Ohio ranked next to Pennsylvania in the production of coal and pig iron, the latter state standing first in these industries. For the manufacture of salt Ohio stood third. The state has doubled its products and manufactures every ten years since 1840.

INDIANA. The great coal field of Illinois extends into Indiana, covering in the western part an estimated area equal to 7700 square miles, or more than one-fifth part of the whole surface. On White River the seams are upwards of six feet thick. In other localities seams of eight feet in thickness are found. Some of the coal measures, it is estimated, are capable of yielding 50,000,000 bushels to the square mile. At Cannelton, on the Ohio, a bed of cannel coal is found from three to five feet in thickness, at an elevation of seventy feet above the river.

Besides coal, iron, limestone, marble, freestone, gypsum, and grindstones, slate of several varieties, clays useful in the arts, and some copper are found in the state.

ILLINOIS.-The Illinois coal field stretches from the Mississippi, near Rock Island, eastward toward Fox River, thence southeast through Indiana, and southward into Kentucky, occupying the greater part of Illinois, the southwestern portion of Indiana, and the northwestern part of Kentucky, measuring three hundred and seventy-five miles in length from northwest to southeast, and two hundred in width from St. Louis eastward-estimated to contain 1,277,500,000,000 tons of coal, sufficient to furnish an annual supply of 13,000,000 tons for nearly a hundred thousand years, being more than six times as large as all the coal fields of Great Britain, and embracing one-third of all the coal measures of North America.

The present annual product of the state is 1,500,000 tons, the amount increasing every year, and, as the coal is of good quality and easily mined, it is destined to become one of the most prominent interests of the state.

The great lead district of the Mississippi river occupies a portion of northwestern Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, and northeastern Iowa, covering an area of about 1,000,000 acres, one-sixth of which lies in Illinois, in Jo Daviess county, which has furnished the entire lead product of the country for twenty years. A few mines in Wisconsin and Illinois have supplied and smelted 15,000.000 pounds a year.

Iron ore has been mined in Hardin county, on the Ohio, several furnaces being in operation. Valuable beds of the ore are reported between the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi; also in Union county and in the northern part of the state. Copper has been found in several counties; also marble, crystallized gypsum, quartz crystal, and silex for glass manufacture; salt also existing in the southern counties, while small quantities of gold and silver have been obtained in the lead district in the northwest corner of the state. Petroleum is found in the northeast part, zine ore in the lead district in Jo Daviess, sulphur and chalybeate springs in Jefferson and other localities.