to be void, or if a part only, what part, and the grounds upon which such claim is founded, and when so paid under protest the payment shall in no case be regarded as voluntary.

Whenever, under the provisions of this section, an action is commenced against the state treasurer, a copy of the complaint and of the summons must be served upon the treasurer, or his deputy. At the time the treasurer demurs or answers, he may demand that the action be tried in the superior court of the county of Sacramento, which demand must be granted. The attorney employed by the state oil and gas supervisor must defend such action; provided, however, the said mineralogist may at the request of the said oil and gas supervisor employ additional counsel, the expense of which employment shall be paid from the petroleum and gas fund. The provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to pleadings, proofs, trials and appeals are applicable to the proceedings herein provided for.

A failure to be in such action within the time herein specified shall be a bar against the recovery of such charges. In any such action the court shall have the power to render judgment for the plaintiff for any part or portion of the charge, penalties, or costs found to be void and so paid by plaintiff upon such assessment.

Delinquent charges.

SEC. 44. The state controller shall, on or before the thirtieth day of May next following the delinquency of any charge as provided in this act, bring an action in a court of competent jurisdiction, in the name of the people of the State of California, in the county in which the property assessed is situated, to collect any delinquent charges or assessments, together with any penalties or costs, which have not been paid in accordance with the provisions of this act and appearing delinquent upon the records of assessments and charges for the petroleum and gas fund in this action provided for.

The attorney for the state oil and gas supervisor shall commence and prosecute such action to final judgment and the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to service of summons, pleadings, proofs, trials and appeals are applicable to the proceedings herein provided for. The state mineralogist may employ additional counsel to assist the attorney for the state oil and gas supervisor, and the expense of such employment shall be paid from the petroleum and gas fund.

Payments of the penalties and charges, or amount of the judgment recovered in such action must be made to the state treasurer. In such actions the record of assessment and charges for oil protection, or a copy of so much thereof as is applicable in said action, duly certified by the controller showing unpaid charges against any person, firm, corporation or association assessed by the state mineralogist is prima facie evidence of the assessment upon the property, the delinquency, the amount of charges, penalties, and costs due and unpaid to the state, and that the person, firm, corporation or association is indebted to the people of the State of California in the amount of charges and penalties therein appearing unpaid and that all the forms of law in relation to the assessment of such charges have been complied with.

First assessment, March, 1916.

SEC. 45. The first assessment under the provisions of this act shall be as of the first Monday in March, nineteen hundred sixteen, and the reports of petroleum production and sales of gas herein provided to be assessed shall be reported for the calendar year ending December thirty-first, nineteen hundred fifteen. The lands herein provided to be assessed and charged shall be assessed to the owners thereof as of the first Monday in March, nineteen hundred sixteen.

Disposal of funds.

SEC. 46. All the moneys heretofore paid to the state treasurer under or pursuant to the provisions of this act and deposited to the credit of the oil protection fund, shall be withdrawn from said fund, which is hereby abolished, and deposited to the credit of the petroleum and gas fund which is hereby created. All of the moneys hereafter paid to the state treasurer under or pursuant to the provisions of this act shall be deposited to the credit of the petroleum and gas fund. All moneys in such

fund shall be expended under the direction of the state mineralogist, drawn from such fund for the purpose of this act upon warrants drawn by the controller of the state, upon demands made by the state mineralogist, and audited by the state board of control. Of the moneys in said petroleum and gas fund, when such action has been authorized by the state board of control, the state mining bureau may withdraw, without at the time furnishing vouchers and itemized statements, a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars, said sum so drawn to be used as a revolving fund where cash

advances are necessary. At the close of each fiscal year, or at any other time, upon demand of the board of control, the moneys so drawn shall be accounted for and substantiated by vouchers and itemized statements submitted to and audited by the board of control.

SEC. 47. All moneys received in repayment of repair work done under the order and direction of the supervisor as hereinbefore provided, shall be returned and credited to the petroleum and gas fund.

Annual report by supervisor.

SEC. 48. On or before the first day of October of each and every year the supervisor shall submit a report in writing to the state mineralogist showing the total number of barrels of petroleum produced in each county in the state during the previous calendar year, together with the total cost of said department for the previous fiscal year and the net amount remaining in the petroleum and gas fund available for the succeeding fiscal year's expense, also the total amount delinquent and uncollected from any assessments or charges levied under or pursuant to the provisions of this act. Such report shall also include such other information as the supervisor may deem advisable. The state mineralogist shall make public such statements promptly after receipt of the same from the supervisor for the benefit of all parties interested therein.

Recording of leases.

SEC. 49. The owner or operator of any lands or tenements subject to assessment under this act shall, within six months after this act goes into effect, file with the supervisor a certificate which shall contain the names of all the parties claiming an interest in or to said lands and full description of the property and the names of all parties in interest where such interest is held by lease, license or assignment.

Definitions.

SEC. 50. Whenever the term "supervisor" is used in this act it shall be taken to mean the "state oil and gas supervisor," the term "oil" shall include "petroleum," the term "petroleum" shall include "oil," the term "gas" shall mean natural gas coming from the earth, the term "operator" shall mean any person, firm or corporation drilling, maintaining, operating, pumping, or in control of a well in any territory which the supervisor determines to be oil or gas producing territory, the term "owner" shall include "operator" when any oil or gas well is operated or has been operated or is about to be operated by any person, firm or corporation other than the owner thereof, and the term "operator" shall include "owner" when any such well is or has been or is about to be operated by or under the direction of the owner, except that all the provisions of this act relating to assessments for the purposes of this act based upon the annual production of oil or petroleum or sale of gas, as set forth in sections twenty-two to forty-five, inclusive of this act, shall apply only to a person, firm or corporation operating an oil or petroleum or gas well, and shall not apply to the owner of such well if some person, firm or corporation, other than such owner, has been actually operating the well during the whole period for which such annual charge is made, but in the event that the actual operation of any such well changes hands during such period, the charge shall be apportioned upon the basis of the oil or petroleum or gas produced, and the lien provided for in section forty-one of this act shall be a lien against the property of each and all such operators.

Appropriation first year.

SEC. 51. There is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the state treasury, not otherwise appropriated, the sum of twenty thousand dollars which said sum

shall be immediately transferred by the state controller on the books of his office from the general fund to the "oil protection fund" created by section forty-six of this act.

The above mentioned fund shall be available for the uses of the state mineralogist for the maintenance of the department of petroleum and gas and for the necessary expenses of the controller in carrying out the provisions of this act. When the collections paid to the state treasurer, as herein provided, equal the sum of thirty thousand dollars then said sum of twenty thousand dollars shall be re-transferred from the oil protection fund to the general fund. The moneys received into the state treasury through the provisions of this act are hereby appropriated for the uses and purposes herein specified.

Constitutionality.

SEC. 52. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase of this act is for any reason held to be unconstitutional, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this act. The legislature hereby declares that it would have passed this act, and each section, subsection, sentence, clause, and phrase thereof, irrespective of the fact that any one or more other sections, subsections, sentences, clauses, or phrases be declared unconstitutional.

Incorporated cities.

SEC. 53. This act shall be liberally construed to meet its purposes and the supervisor shall have all powers which may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this act, but the provisions of this act shall not apply to any land or wells situated within the boundaries of an incorporated city where the drilling of oil wells is prohibited.

Repeal of previous law.

SEC. 54. That certain act entitled "An act to prevent injury to oil, gas or petroleum-bearing strata or formations by the penetration or infiltration of water therein," approved March 20, 1909, together with all acts amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto and all acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed. Nothing herein shall be construed as affecting the provisions of the act of June 16, 1913. establishing a state mining bureau.

FEDERAL STATUTES.

Title XXXII, Chapter 6, Revised Statutes.

SEC. 2319. All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States. both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United States and those who have declared their intention to become such, under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local customs or rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States.

Lode Claims.

SEC. 2320. Mining claims upon veins or lodes of quartz or other rock in place bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits, heretofore located, shall be governed as to length along the vein or lode by the customs, regulations, and laws in force at the date of their location. A mining claim located after the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, whether located by one or more persons, may equal, but shall not exceed, one thousand five hundred feet in length along the vein or lode; but no location of a mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim located. No claim shall extend more than three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, nor shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation to less than twenty-five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, except where adverse rights existing on the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, render such limitation necessary. The end lines of each claim shall be parallel to

each other.

Citizenship.

SEC. 2321. Proof of citizenship, under this chapter, may consist, in the case of an individual, of his own affidavit thereof; in the case of an association of persons unincorporated, of the affidavit of their authorized agent, made on his own knowledge, or upon information and belief; and in the case of a corporation organized under the laws of the United States, or of any state or territory thereof, by the filing of a certified copy of their charter or certificate of incorporation.

This is supplemented by an act of April 26, 1882, which provides:

"That applicants for mineral patents, if residing beyond the limits of the district wherein the claim is situated, may make any oath or affidavit required for proof of citizenship before the clerk of any court of record, or before any notary public of any state or territory." (22 Stats. at Large, p. 49, chap. 106.)

Extra-lateral Rights.

SEC. 2322. The locators of all mining locations heretofore made or which shall hereafter be made, on any mineral vein, lode, or ledge, situated on the public domain, their heirs and assigns, where no adverse claims exist on the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, so long as they comply with the laws of the United States, and with state, territorial and local regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States governing their possessory title, shall have the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of their locations, and of all veins, lodes and ledges throughout their entire depth, the top or apex of which lies inside of such surface lines extended downward vertically, although such veins, lodes, or ledges may so far depart from a perpendicular in their course downward as to extend outside the vertical side lines of such surface locations. But their right of possession to such outside parts of such veins or ledges shall be confined to such portions thereof as lie between vertical planes drawn downward as above described through the end lines of their locations, so continued in their own direction that such planes will intersect such exterior parts of such veins or ledges. And nothing in this section shall authorize the locator or possessor of a vein, or lode which extends in its downward course beyond the vertical lines of his claim, to enter upon the surface of a claim owned or possessed by another.

Tunnel Claims.

SEC. 2323. 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 on the line of such tunnel.

Recording and Annual Assessments.

SEC. 2324. The miners of each mining district may make regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or with the laws of the state or territory in which the district is situated, governing the location, manner of recording, amount of work necessary to hold possession of a mining claim, subject to the following requirements: The location must be distinctly marked on the ground so that its boundaries can be readily traced. All records of mining claims hereafter made 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. On each claim located after the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year.

Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that section two thousand, three hundred and twentyfour of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so 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, whether located prior to or since the passage of said act; 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 as required by said act. (18 Stats. at Large, page 315, chap. 41.)

An amendment of January 22, 1880, reads:

"Provided, that the period within which the work required to be done annually on all unpatented mineral claims shall commence on the first day of January succeeding the date of location of such claim, and this section shall apply to all claims located since the tenth day of May, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventytwo." (21 Stats. at Large, page 61, chap. 9.)

The federal law fixes the minimum of labor requirements. State and local laws may require additional work as part of the act of location. This has been sustained by Supreme Court decisions.

Patents.

Section 2325 of the federal statutes provides that after $500 has been expended on a mining claim in work or improvements, a patent can be applied for, upon the claim being surveyed by a United States mineral surveyor, and by the payment of $5 per acre for the land to the United States government.

PLACERS.

SEC. 2329. Claims usually called "placers" including all forms of deposit, excepting veins of quartz, or other rock in place, shall be subject to entry and patent, under like circumstances and conditions, and upon similar proceedings, as are provided for vein or lode claims; but where the lands have been previously surveyed by the United States, the entry in its exterior limits shall conform to the legal subdivisions of the public lands.