rights be limited to less than fifty feet in width, unless adverse claims existing on the 10th day of May, 1872, render such lateral limitation necessary.

MINERS MAY MAKE RULES. 12. It is provided by the Revised Statutes that the miners of each district may make rules and regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or of the State or Territory in which such districts are respectively situated, governing the location, manner of recording, and amount of work necessary to hold possession of a claim. They likewise require that the location shall be so distinctly marked on the ground that its boundaries may be readily traced. This is a very important matter, and locators cannot exercise too much care in defining their locations at the outset, inasmuch as the law requires that all records of mining locations made subsequent to May 10, 1872, shall contain the name or names of the locators, the date of the location, and such a description of the claim or claims located, by reference to some natural object or permanent monument, as will identify the claim. (Form 2, see index.)

WHEN LOCATION CAN BE RECORDED. 13. The statutes provide that no lode-claim shall be recorded until after the discovery of a vein or lode within the limits of the claim located, the object of which provision is evidently to prevent the appropriation of presumed mineral ground for speculative purposes to the exclusion of bona fide prospectors, before sufficient work has been done to determine whether a vein or lode really exists.

LOCATION NOTICE. 14. The claimant should, therefore, prior to locating his claim, unless the vein can be traced upon the surface, sink a shaft, or run a tunnel or drift, to a sufficient depth therein to discover and develop a mineral bearing vein, lode, or crevice; should determine, if possible, the general course of such vein in either direction from the point of discovery, by which direction he will be governed in marking the boundaries of his claim on the surface. His location notice should give the course and distance as nearly as practicable from the discovery shaft on the claim, to some permanent, well known points or objects, such, for instance, as stone monuments, blazed trees, the confluence of streams, point of intersection of well known gulches, ravines, or roads, prominent buttes, hills, etc., which may be in the immediate vicinity, and

which will serve to perpetuate and fix the locus of the claim and render it susceptible of identification from the description thereof given in the record of locations in the district, and should be duly recorded. (Form 3, see index.)

WHAT NOTICE MUST SHOW. 15. In addition to the foregoing data, the claimant should state the names of adjoining claims, or, if none adjoin, the relative positions of the nearest claims; should drive a post or erect a monument of stones at each corner of his surface ground, and at the point of discovery or discovery shaft should fix a post, stake, or board, upon which should be designated the name of the lode, the name or names of the locators, the number of feet claimed, and in which direction from the point of discovery; it being essential that the location notice filed for record, in addition to the foregoing description, should state whether the entire claim of fifteen hundred feet is taken on one side of the point of discovery, or whether it is partly upon one and partly upon the other side thereof, and in the latter case, how many feet are claimed upon each side of such discovery point.

WHEN NOTICE IS TO BE FILED. 16. Within a reasonable time, say twenty days after the location shall have been marked on the ground, or such time as is allowed by the local laws, notice thereof, accurately describing the claim in manner aforesaid, should be filed for record with the proper recorder of the district, who will thereupon issue the usual certificate of location.

AMOUNT TO BE EXPENDED TO HOLD CLAIM. 17. In order to hold the possessory right to a location made since May 10, 1872, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor must be performed, or improvements made thereon annually until entry shall have been made. Under the provisions of the act of Congress approved January 22, 1880, the first annual expenditure becomes due and must be performed during the calendar year succeeding that in which the location was made. Expenditure made or labor performed prior to the first day of January succeeding the date of location will not be considered as a part of, or applied upon the first annual expenditure required by law. Failure to make the expenditure or perform the labor required will subject the claim to relocation by any other party having the necessary qualifications, unless the original locator, his heirs, assigns, or legal representatives have resumed

work thereon after such failure and before such relocation. (Form 4, see index.)

HOW WORK MAY BE DONE. 18. The expenditures required upon mining claims may be made from the surface or in running a tunnel for the development of such claims, the act of February 11, 1875, providing that where a person or company has, or may, run a tunnel for the purpose of developing a lode or lodes owned by said person or company, the money so expended in said tunnel shall be taken and considered as expended on said lode or lodes, and such person or company shall not be required to perform work on the surface of said lode or lodes in order to hold the same.

MAY INVALIDATE CLAIM. 19. The importance of attending to these details in the matter of location, labor, and expenditure will be the more readily perceived when it is understood that a failure to give the subject proper attention may invalidate the claim.

TUNNEL RIGHTS.

(Form 7, see index.)

RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 20. Section 2323 provides that where a tunnel is run for the development of a vein or lode, or for the discovery of mines, the owners of such tunnel shall have the right of possession of all veins or lodes within three thousand feet from the face of such tunnel on the line thereof, not previously known to exist, discovered in such tunnel, to the same extent as if discovered from the surface; and locations on the line of such tunnel of veins or lodes not appearing on the surface, made by other parties after the commencement of the tunnel, and while the same is being prosecuted with reasonable diligence, shall be invalid; but failure to prosecute the work on the tunnel for six months shall be considered as an abandonment of the right to all undiscovered veins or lodes on the line of said tunnel.

EFFECT OF. 21. The effect of this is simply to give the proprietors of a mining tunnel run in good faith the possessory

right to fifteen hundred feet of any blind lodes cut, discovered, or intersected by such tunnel, which were not previously known to exist, within three thousand feet from the face or point of commencement of such tunnel, and to prohibit other parties, after the commencement of the tunnel, from prospecting for and making locations of lodes on the line thereof and within said distance of three thousand feet, unless such lodes appear upon the surface or were previously known to exist.

"FACE." 22. The term "face," as used in said section, is construed and held to mean the first working-face formed in the tunnel, and to signify the point at which the tunnel actually enters cover; it being from this point that the three thousand feet are to be counted, upon which prospecting is prohibited as aforesaid.

HOW TO ACQUIRE BENEFIT OF LAW. 23. To avail themselves of the benefits of this provision of law, the proprietors of a mining tunnel will be required, at the time they enter cover as aforesaid, to give proper notice of their tunnel location by erecting a substantial post, board, or monument at the face or point of commencement thereof, upon which should be posted a good and sufficient notice, giving the names of the parties or company claiming the tunnel-right; the actual or proposed course or direction of the tunnel; the height and width thereof, and the course and distance from such face or point of commencement to some permanent well-known objects in the vicinity by which to fix and determine the locus in manner heretofore set forth applicable to locations of veins or lodes, and at the time of posting such notice they shall, in order that miners or prospectors may be enabled to determine whether or not they are within the lines of the tunnel, establish the boundary lines thereof, by stakes or monuments placed along such lines at proper intervals, to the terminus of the three thousand feet from the face or point of commencement of the tunnel, and the lines so marked will define and govern as to the specific boundaries within which prospecting for lodes not previously known to exist is prohibited while work on the tunnel is being prosecuted with reasonable diligence.

NOTICE OF LOCATION TO BE RECORDED. 24. At the time of posting notice and marking out the lines of the tunnel as aforesaid, a full and correct copy of such notice of

location defining the tunnel claim must be filed for record with the mining recorder of the district, to which notice must be attached the sworn statement or declaration of the owners, claimants, or projectors of such tunnel, setting forth the facts in the case; stating the amount expended by themselves and their predecessors in interest in prosecuting work thereon; the extent of the work performed, and that it is bona fide, their intention to prosecute work on the tunnel so located and described with reasonable diligence for the development of a vein or lode, or for the discovery of mines, or both, as the case may be. This notice of location must be duly recorded, and with the said sworn statement attached, kept on the recorder's files for future reference.

25. By a compliance with the foregoing much needless difficulty will be avoided, and the way for the adjustment of legal rights acquired in virtue of said section 2323 will be made much more easy and certain.

FORFEITURE. 26. This office will take particular care that no improper advantage is taken of this provision of law by parties making or professing to make tunnel locations, ostensibly for the purpose named in the statute, but really for the purpose of monopolizing the lands lying in front of their tunnels to the detriment of the mining interests and to the exclusion of bona fide prospectors or miners, but will hold such tunnel claimants to a strict compliance with the terms of the statutes; and a reasonable diligence on their part in prosecuting the work is one of the essential conditions of their implied contract. Negligence or want of due diligence will be construed as working a forfeiture of their right to all undiscovered veins on the line of such tunnel.

MANNER OF PROCEEDING TO OBTAIN GOVERNMENT TITLE TO VEIN OR LODE CLAIMS

27. By section 2325 authority is given for granting titles for mines by patent from the Government to any person, association or corporation having the necessary qualifications as to citizenship and holding the right of possession to a claim in compliance with law.