lines may even be retraced. Whether the various details of patenting have been complied with; if the claims are essentially mineral land, taken up as bona fide mineral claims, and not for some other and unwarranted purpose; whether the necessary expenditure has been made; was it performed by the applicant or his grantors; whether it develops the claim as contemplated by law; whether the rights of other locators have been encroached upon, and similar matters, are investigated. While the miner must initiate and fight his own adverse cases, these examinations directly and indirectly give invaluable aid to miners whose rights are being or are liable to be encroached upon. They have a good moral effect in decreasing the tendency to fraud and underhand work by applicants, which the surveyorsgeneral and General Land Office are unable to reach, and which only field investigations will reveal.

The reports of the mineral examiners and special agents are made to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and are confidential. The patent proceedings usually progress without reference to these reports, but patent does not issue until they are received. If a report is adverse, and after having been considered by the General Land Office it is held that the charges are sufficient, if true, to warrant the rejection or cancellation of the entry or claim, a notice of the charges is served upon the entryman or claimant, who is allowed thirty days to file in the local land office a denial under oath of the charges, with an application for a hearing before the register and the receiver. The charges made in the adverse report are in the nature of a protest against the patent by the Government, and in the hearing of these charges must be supported for the Government by the special agent or examiner making them. The usual appeals from the decision of the register and receiver can be made to the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior. Upon receipt of these charges the local land office will not allow entry, unless already made, until the protest is removed. If the claims for patent lie within a Forest Reserve, they will also be inspected by a local Forest Service officer. The purpose of this examination is to see that the claims are bona fide mining claims and not taken

up as a cloak to fraudulently secure land for other purposes, also that the allowance of patent will not prejudice the interests of the National Forests.

CHAPTER XIX

Patent Placer, Known Lodes Within Placers, Millsites

The subject of placers and known lodes within placers, together with the Statutes governing, has been treated at length under the headings 'Placer Location' and 'Lodes Within Placers.' Likewise, the subject of millsites has been treated under 'Millsite Location.' The Land Office regulation 59 says, concerning patents on placer claims, "the proceedings for obtaining patents for veins or lodes having already been fully given, it will not be necessary to repeat them here, it being thought that careful attention thereto by applicants and the local officers will enable them to act understandingly in the matter, and make such slight modifications in the notice, or otherwise, as may be necessary in view of the different nature of the two classes of claims."

Placer claims upon surveyed land and conforming to the public-land surveys, require no survey nor any proceedings in the surveyor-general's office. Claims not upon surveyed land or not conforming to the legal subdivisions when upon surveyed land, are required to be surveyed by a deputy mineral surveyor under proceedings similar to the case of lode claims. Claims of the first class, when described by legal subdivisions, may be entered at once in the local land office for patent, after which the proceedings in both cases are practically the same as with lode claims.

"In placer locations, in addition to the recitals necessary in and to both vein or lode and placer applications, the placer application should contain, in detail, such data as will support the claim that the land applied for is placer ground containing valuable mineral deposits not in vein or lode formation, and that title is sought not to control watercourses or to obtain valuable timber, but in good faith because of the mineral therein. This statement, of course, must depend upon the character of

the deposit and the natural features of the ground, but the following details should be covered as fully as possible: If the claim be for a deposit of placer gold, there must be stated the yield per pan, or cubic yard, as shown by prospecting and development work, distance to bedrock, formation and extent of the deposit, and all other facts upon which he bases his allegation that the claim is valuable for its deposits of placer gold. If it be a building stone or other deposit than gold claimed under the placer laws, he must describe fully the kind, nature, and extent of the deposit, stating the reasons why same is by him regarded as a valuable mineral claim. He will also be required to describe fully the natural features of the claim; streams, if any, must be fully described as to their course, amount of water carried, fall within the claim; and he must state kind and amount of timber and other vegetation thereon and adaptability to mining or other uses. If the claim be all placer ground, that fact must be stated in the application and corroborated by accompanying proofs; if of mixed placers and lodes, it should be so set out, with a description of all known lodes situated within the boundaries of the claim. A specific declaration, such as is required by section 2333, Revised Statutes, must be furnished as to each lode intended to be claimed. All other known lodes are, by the silence of the applicant, excluded by law from all claim by him, of whatsoever nature, possessory or otherwise. While this data is required as a part of the mineral surveyor's report under paragraph 167, in case of placers taken by special survey, it is proper that the application for patent incorporate these facts under the oath of the claimant. Inasmuch as in case of claims taken by legal subdivisions, no report by a mineral surveyor is required, the claimant, in his application in addition to the data above required, should describe in detail the shafts, cuts, tunnels, or other workings claimed as improvements, giving their dimensions, value, and the course and distance thereof to the nearest corner of the public surveys. As prescribed by paragraph 25, this statement as to the description and value of the improvements [the $500 expenditure for patent purposes] must be cor

roborated by the affidavits of two disinterested witnesses." (Land Office regulation 60.)

Where the claim must be surveyed for patent, the deputy mineral surveyor must make a report in accordance with regulation 167 of the Land Department:

"Mineral surveyors are required to make full examinations of all placer claims at the time of the survey, and file with the field notes a descriptive report, in which will be described: (a) The quality and composition of the soil, and the kind and amount of timber and other vegetation. (b) The locus and size of streams, and such other matter as may appear upon the surface of the claims. (c) The character and extent of all surface and underground workings, whether placer or lode, for mining purposes, locating and describing them. (d) The proximity of centres of trade or residence. (e) The proximity of well known systems of lode deposits or of individual lodes. (f) The use or adaptability of the claim for placer mining, and whether water has been brought upon it in sufficient quantity to mine the same, or whether it can be procured for that purpose. (g) What works or expenditures have been made by the claimant or his grantors for the development of the claim, and their situation and location with respect to the same as applied for. (h) The true situation of all mines, salt licks, salt springs, and millsites which come to the surveyor's knowledge, or a report by him that none exist on the claim, as the facts may warrant. (i) Said report must be made under oath and duly corroborated by one or more disinterested persons."

A placer claim requires improvements to the amount of $500 before being patented, just as in the case of lode claims. A single claim of 160 acres requires only $500 worth of work, just as a smaller claim of 20 acres would. Affidavit of the expenditure is made by the deputy mineral surveyor who surveys the claim for patent, or in case of a claim by legal subdivisions and without patent survey, the affidavit of expenditure may consist of the affidavit of two or more disinterested witnesses.

Known lodes within placer claims may be patented by any one locating them, whether the owner of the placer ground or