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selected by the State, and upon the list being approved by the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior, the title vests in the State.

SALT SPRING LANDS.

Saline reservations are made in each Territory; and upon becoming a State and being admitted into the Union, these reservations to the amount of seventy-two sections have been granted to each State.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

By the act of September 4th, 1841, 500,000 acres of the public lands within the State are granted to each State for general works of Internal Improvements. Form C, page 191, has been prescribed in selecting this class of Lands. The following application and certificate are to be attached to the selections when made.

State of

I hereby apply in behalf of the State of

186.

for the tracts described in this list, as being selected for said State under the 8th section of the act of 4th September, 1841.

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I hereby certify that the foregoing list was filed in this office on the and that the selections are correct, and that no valid conflicting right is known to exist.

Register.

MINING CLAIMS

UNDER

THE ACT OF CONGRESS APPROVED JULY 26, 1866 -U. S. STATUTES, PAGE 251, CHAPTER CCLXII.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

General Land Office, January 14th, 1867.

GENTLEMEN: Herewith will be found the act of Congress approved 26th July, 1866, "granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the public lands, and for other purposes." By the first section of this act all the mineral lands of the United States, surveyed and unsurveyed, are laid open to "all citizens of the United States, and to those who have declared their intention to become such, subject to statutory regulations," and also "to the local customs or rules of miners in the several mining districts not in conflict with the laws of the United States."

It therefore becomes your duty, in limine, to acquaint yourselves with the local mining customs and usages in the district in which you may be called upon to do those official acts which are required by law, whether the same are reduced to authentic written form, or are to be ascertained by the testimony of intelligent miners, which you are to obtain as occasion may require and justify, in acting upon individual claims, a perfect record whereof is to be carefully taken and preserved by the Register and Receiver, and to be accompanied by a diagram or plat fixing the out boundaries of the district in which such customs and usages exist.

The second section of the act declares that "whenever any person or association of persons claim a vein or lode of quartz or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the same according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the same is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvements thereon an amount of not less than one thousand dollars, and in regard to whose possession there is no controversy or opposing

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claim, it shall and may be lawful for said claimant, or association of claimants, to file in the local land office a diagram of the same, so extended laterally or otherw se, as to conform to the local laws, customs, and rules of miners, and to enter such tract and receive a patent therefor, granting such mine, together with the right to follow such vein or lode with its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition."

Mining claims may be entered at any district land office in the United States under this law by any person, or association of persons, corporate or incorporate. In making the entry, however, such a description of the tract must be filed as will indicate the vein or lode, or part or portion thereof claimed, together with a diagram representing, by reference to some natural or artificial monument, the position and location of the claim and the boundaries thereon, so far as such boundaries can be ascertained.

First. In all cases the number of feet in length claimed on the vein or lode shall be stated in the application filed as aforesaid, and the lines limiting the length of the claim shall, also, in all cases be exhibited on the diagram, and the course or direction of such end lines, when not fixed by agreement with the adjoining claimants, nor by the local customs or rules of the miners of the district, shall be drawn at right angles to the ascertained or apparent general course of the vein or lode.

Second. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes except the surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are unascertained, and the lateral extent of such vein or lode unknown, it shall be sufficient, after giving the description and diagram aforesaid, to state the fact that the extent of such vein or lode cannot be ascertained by actual measurement, but that the said vein or lode is bounded on each side by the wall of the same, and to estimate the amount of ground contained between the given end lines and the unascertained walls of the vein or lode; and in such case the patent will issue for all the land contained between such end lines and side walls, with the right to follow such vein or lode, with all its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter the land adjoining: Provided, The estimated quantity shall be equal to a horizontal plane bounded by the given end lines, and the walls on the sides of such vein or lode.

Third. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes, except the surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are ascertained and well known, such

wall shall be named in the description, and marked on the diagram, in connection with the end lines of such claims.

Fourth. Where, by the laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, a given quantity of surface ground is fixed for the purpose of mining or milling the ore, the aforesaid diagram and description in the entry shall correspond with and include so much of the surface as shall be allowed by such laws, customs, or rules for the purpose aforesaid.

Fifth. In the absence of uniform rules in any mining district limiting the amount of surface to be used for mining purposes, actual and peaceable use and occupation for mining or milling purposes shall be regarded as evidence of a custom of miners authorizing the same, and the ground so occupied and used in connection with the vein or lode, and being adjacent thereto, may be included within the entry aforesaid, and the diagram shall embrace the same as appurtenant to the mine.

Where the claimant or claimants desire to include within their entry and diagram any surface ground beyond the surface of the vein, it shall be necessary, upon filing the application, to furnish the Register of the land office with proof of the usage, law, or custom under which he or they claim such surface ground, and such evidence may consist either of the written rules of the miners of the district or the testimony of two credible witnesses to the uniform custom or the actual use and occupation as aforesaid, which testimony shall be reduced to writing by the Register and Receiver, and filed in the Register's office, with the application, a record thereof to be made as contemplated under the first head in the foregoing.

By the third section of the act it is required that upon the filing of the diagram as provided in the second section, and posting the same in a conspicuous place on the claim, with notice of intention to apply for a patent, the Register shall publish a notice of the same in a newspaper nearest the location of said claim, which notice shall state name of the claimant, name of mine, names of adjoining claimants on each end of the claim, the district and county in which the mine is situated, informing the public that application has been made for a patent for same, the Register also to post such notice in his office for ninety days.

Thereafter, should no adverse claim have been filed, and satisfactory proof should be produced that the Diagram and Notice have been posted in the manner and for the period stipulated in the statute, it will become the duty of the Surveyor-General, upon application of the party, to survey the premises, and make plat thereof, indorsed with his approval, designating the number and description of the location, the value of the labor and improvements, and the character of the vein exposed. As preliminary to the survey, however, the Surveyor-General must estimate

the expense of surveying, platting, and ascertain from the Register the cost of the publication of notice, the amount of all of which must be deposited by the applicant for survey with any assistant United States Treasurer or designated depositary, in favor of the United States Treasurer, to be passed to the credit of the fund created by "individual depositors for the surveys of the public lands." Duplicate certificates of such deposits must be filed with the Surveyor-General for transmission to this office, as in the case of deposits for surveys of public lands under the 10th section of the act of Congress approved May 30th, 1862, and joint resolution of July 1st, 1864.

After the survey thus paid for shall have been duly executed, and the plat thereof approved by the Surveyor-General, designating the number and the description of the location, accompanied by his official certificate of the value of the labor and improvements and character of the vein exposed, with the testimony of two or more reliable persons cognizant of the facts on which his certificate may be founded as to the value of the labor and improvements, the party claiming shall file the same with the Register and Receiver, and thereupon pay to the said Receiver five dollars per acre for the premises embraced in the survey, and shall file with those officers a triplicate certificate of deposit showing the payment of the cost of survey, plat, and notice, with satisfactory evidence, which shall be the testimony of at least two credible witnesses, that the diagram and notice were posted on the claim for a period of ninety days, as required by law and as contemplated in the foregoing. Thereupon it shall be the duty of the Register to transmit to the General Land Office said plat, survey, and description, with the proof indorsed as satisfactory by the Register and Receiver, so that a patent may issue if the proceedings are found regular, but neither the plat, survey, description, nor patent shall issue for more than one vein or lode.

The unity of the surveying system is to be maintained by extending over the mining districts the rectangular method, at least so far as township lines are concerned.

The contemplated surveys of the mineral lands will be made by district deputies, under contracts, according to the mode adopted in the survey of the public lands and private land claims, embracing in them all such veins or lodes as may be called for by claimants entitled to have them surveyed.

In consideration of the very limited scope of surveying involved in each mining claim, the per mileage allowed by law may not be adequate to secure the services of scientific surveyors, and hence the necessity of resorting to a per diem principle, it being the most equitable under the circumstances.

The Surveyor-General is therefore hereby authorized to com

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