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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 U. S. treasurer or designated depositary, in favor of the U. S. Treasurer, to be passed to the credit of the fund created by "individual depositors for the surveys of 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 will 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 circum

stances.

The Surveyor-General is therefore hereby authorized to commission resident mineral surveyors for different districts where, isolated from each other, and absolutely inconvenient for one surveyor promptly to attend to the several calls for surveying in such localities, the compensation not to exceed ten dollars per diem, including all expenses incident thereto. Such surveyors shall enter into bonds of $10,000 for the faithful performance of their duties in the survey of such claims as the Surveyor-General may be required to execute in pursuance of the aforesaid law and these instructions.

The fourth section contemplates the location and entry of a mine upon unsurveyed lands, stipulating for the surveys of public lands to be adjusted. to the lines of the claims according to the location and possession and plat thereof. In surveying such claims, the Surveyor-General is authorized to vary from the rectangular form to suit the circumstances of the country, local rules, laws, and customs of miners. The extent of the locations made from and after the passage of the act shall, however, not 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: Provided, No person may make more than one location on the same lode, and no more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by any association of persons.

The deputy surveyors should be scientific men, capable of examining and reporting fully on every lode they will survey, and to bring in duplicate specimens of the ore, one of which you will send to this office and the other the Surveyor-General will keep to be ultimately turned over with the surveying archives to the State authorities.

The surveyors of mineral claims, whether on surveyed or unsurveyed lands, must designate those claims by a progressive series of numbers, beginning with No. 37, so as to avoid interference in that respect with the regular sectional series of numbers in each township; and shall designate the four owners of each claim, where the side lines of the same are known, so that such corners can be given by either trees, if any are found standing in place, or any corner rocks exist in place, or posts may be set diagonally and deeply imbedded, with four sides facing adjoining claims, sufficiently flattened to admit of inscriptions thereon; but where the corners are unknown it will be sufficient to place a well-built solid mound at each end of the claim. The beginning corner of the claim nearest to any corners of the public surveys is to be connected by course and distance, so as to ascertain the relative position of each claim in reference to township and range when the same have been surveyed; but in those parts of the surveying district where no such lines have as yet been extended, it will be the duty of Surveyors-General to have the same surveyed and marked, at least so far as standard and township lines are concerned, at the per mileage allowed, so as to embrace the mineral region, and to connect the nearest corners of the mineral claims with the corners of the public surveys.

Should it, however, be found impracticable to establish independent base and meridian lines, or to extend township lines over the region containing mineral claims required to be surveyed under the law, then, and in that case, you will cause to be surveyed in the first instance such a claim, the initial point of which will start either from a confluence of waters or such natural and permanent objects as will unmistakably identify the point of the beginning of the survey of the claim upon which other surveys will depend.

SEC. 5. Provides that in cases where the laws of Congress are silent upon the subject of rules for working mines, respecting easements, drainage, and other necessary means to the complete development of the same, the local Legislature of any State or Territory may provide them, and in order to embody such enactments into patents, you are directed to communicate any such laws to this office.

SEC. 6. Should adverse claimants to any mine appear before the approval of the survey, all further proceedings shall be stayed until a final settlement and adjudication are had in the courts of the rights of possession to such claim, except where the parties agree to settlement or a portion of the premises is not in dispute when a patent may issue as in other cases.

SEC. 7. Provides for such additional land districts as may be necessary.

SEC. 8. For the right of way.

SEC. 9. For the protection of rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, for the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals; and makes parties constructing such work (after the passage of this act) to the injury of settlers, liable in damages.

SEC. 10. Homesteads made prior to the passage of this act by citizens of the United States, or persons who have declared their intention to become citizens, but on which lands no valuable mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper have been discovered, are protected, so that settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption thereto, in quantity not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, at $1.25 per acre, or to avail themselves of the homestead act and acts amendatory thereof.

SEC. 11. Stipulates that upon the survey of the lands in question, the Secretary of the Interior may set apart such portions as are clearly agricultural, and thereafter subjects such agricultural tracts to pre-emption and sale as other public lands.

In order to enable the department properly to give effect to this section of the law, you will cause your deputy surveyors to describe in their field-notes of surveys, in addition to the data required to be noted in the printed Manual of Surveying Instructions, on pages 17 and 18, the agricultural lands, and represent the same on township plats by the designation of " Agricultural lands."

It is to be understood that there is nothing obligatory on claimants to proceed under this statute, and that where they fail to do so, there being no adverse interest, they hold the same relations to the premises they may be working which they did before the passage of this act, with the additional guarantee that they possess the right of occupancy under the

statute.

The foregoing presents such views as have occurred to this office in considering the prominent points of the statute, and will be followed by

further instructions as the rulings in actual cases, and experience in the administration of the statute may from time to time suggest.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner. To the United States Registers and Receivers and Surveyors-General.

No. 269 B.

Supplement to Circular of January 14, 1867, in relation to Mining Claims.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERior,

*

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, June 25, 1867. Gentlemen :-In the preparation of forms adapted to the purchase of Mineral interests under the act of July 26, 1866, it is found necessary, in connection with circular of January 14, 1867, to direct your attention to the following:

1st. Where the rules of miners do not permit ground to be occupied, except the surface of the vein or lode, the claims presented may contain less than an acre of ground. In such cases, as we do not in regard to rates deal with a fraction, the price of five dollars is to be paid for the same; if the area exceeds that quantity, ten dollars; if more than two acres, fifteen dollars, and so on.

2d. In applications for mineral claims, it will be necessary, where a claim contains less than one acre, that the agreement expressed should be to pay five dollars for the claim.

3d. Should a party appear as an party appear as an "adverse claimant," as contemplated by the sixth section of the act, you will require such person to show by proof the claim or interest he may have in the mine; and should the same be satisfactory to you, all further proceedings will be stayed until a final settlement and adjudication shall be had in the courts. But in case the adverse claimant, after proceedings have been stayed, shall fail to instituțe action in the courts, either pending or at their next ensuing session, with a view to the final adjustment of the claims, you will proceed with the case as if no objections had been filed.

4th. You will enter all claims under the act in separate tract books from those used for agricultural lands-dividing the books into townships and ranges, allowing about eight pages to each township.

For the present you will use the blank forms of abstracts of land sold and Register of Receipts in reporting returns, making such slight alterations in the headings as the cases may demand. Should it be found advisable in the future to have special abstracts, forms will be prepared and printed, and a supply duly transmitted to you.

As no

You will commence a new series of numbers with the certificatesbeginning with No. 1-and continue the same in regular order. special fee is provided for in the statute, you will be allowed one per cent. each on amount of purchase-money, as in cash sales. The moneys received for these claims will be accounted for in the Receiver's returns as cash received from sale of mineral claims.

Forms of applications, certificates, and receipts are being printed, and a supply will be sent as soon as possible.

I also append an abstract of duties prescribed in instructions of 14th January, 1867. Very respectfully,

Register and Receiver,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

* No. 174 B.

ABSTRACT OF DUTIES PRESCRIBED IN MINERAL INSTRUCTIONS OF JANUARY 1867.

14,

Claimant-To post a notice on the claim giving information of his intention to apply for a patent. To file a diagram with the Register, together with the evidence of the rules of miners in support of the claim and its extent. After the diagram and notice have been posted ninety days, and no adverse claim filed, the claimant to apply to Surveyor-General for survey of the claim, deposit the amount estimated by the Surveyor-General to cover the expenses of the survey, platting, and notice with any assistant United States treasurer or designated depository 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," taking duplicate certificate of deposit, filing one with Surveyor-General, to be sent to the General Land Office, and retaining the other; and when the survey is approved and diagram thereof, together with the Surveyor-General's certificate as to improvements and character of the vein exposed, the claimant to pay to the Receiver the price of the claim.

Register and Receiver-To examine testimony filed by claimant showing the applicability of miner's rules in reference to the extent of the claim, which testimony is to be reduced to writing and filed with the claimant's application in the Register's office. Also, to examine the returns of survey approved by the Surveyor-General and filed by the claim

ant.

Receiver-To receive from the claimant the price of the claim on his filing with Register and Receiver the approved plat and certificate of the Surveyor-General as to the value of improvements and character of vein exposed, based on testimony by two reliable witnesses.

Register's diagram of the claim being filed by the claimant, the Register shall publish a notice in a newspaper nearest to the claim, naming the mine, claimant, adjoining claimants, district, and county, informing the public that application has been made for a patent. The Register will post the notice in his office for ninety days, and on the publisher's presenting his account to the Register immediately on the expiration of the ninety days, he will transmit it to the Surveyor-General; and on the receipt from the claimants of the Surveyor-General's certificate of the improvements on the claim, together with plat and other evidence of the survey approved, also the Receiver's receipt for the payment. for the claim, the Register will transmit same, with proof, indorsed by Register and Receiver as satisfactory, to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for patent.

Surveyor General's duty when no adverse claim is filed, proof furnished that the diagram and notice had been posted for ninety days, and on receiving also from the Register the account of the publisher of the notice: The Surveyor-General, when applied to by the claimant for the survey of his claim, shall estimate the expense of the survey, platting, and notice, and when a certificate of deposit is filed with him by the claimant he shall order the survey to be made, and transmit the certificate of deposit to the General Land Office. When the returns of survey are made to the Surveyor-General's office, he will approve the same, hand the necessary evidence thereof to the claimant, to be filed by him in the Register and Receiver's office for examination and final preparation of patent certificate by the Register for transmission to the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The Surveyor-General will also transmit returns of the survey to

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