of the declarations of officers of the company not authorized to fix boundaries, and it was held to be erroneous.

Hanson v. Fletcher, 37 Pac. 480 (1894). The respondents Utah. included within their claim four hundred feet upon the east side line, two hundred feet upon the west side line, forty feet upon the north end line, and fifty feet upon the south end line, in excess of the amount allowed by law. This was due to an innocent mistake caused honestly by an inaccurate method of measurement, and without any intention to include a greater amount than that allowed. Plaintiff having actual notice of the location, having seen the monuments, attempted to relocate the ground. Held, respondents' location was valid. "We do not mean to be understood that any length, however great, in excess of the limit of the grant can be located without rendering the claim void for uncertainty. A mining claim may include so great an excess of ground as to render it absolutely void, depending upon the surrounding circumstances of each case. But what we do mean to say is, that under the particular circumstances of this case the excess within the boundaries of the Blue Rock does not render the same void."

LAND OFFICE DECISIONS.

Where the vein is developed below the surface, and the locator does not determine by any further prospecting that the nearest actual surface point is elsewhere, and the fact does not otherwise appear, the point of the vein so discovered must be assumed to be the middle of the vein for the purpose of lateral measurement under Rev. Stats. 2320. Copp, 231 (1878).

The middle of the vein must be ascertained by actual exploration and development, or the discovery shaft must, for executive purposes, be taken as the middle of the vein, and the lateral measurements made therefrom." Copp, 276 (1880).

An applicant for patent for a lode within a placer (the existence of the lode being known at the time of the placer application) failed to file an adverse claim to the placer application, and was restricted to twenty-five feet of surface on each side of the lode. (Rev. Stats. 2333). Shonbar Lode, 1 L. D. 551 (1883).

The twenty-five feet referred to in section 2333 U. S. Revised Statutes is to be measured from the centre of the vein or lode. Shonbar Lode, 3 L. D. 388 (1885).

Following the doctrine enunciated in Smelting Co. v. Kemp, an application for the survey of a claim embracing several contiguous lode locations is granted. Champion M. Co., 4 L. D. 362 (1886).

II. PLACER CLAIMS.

The extent of placer locations is fixed by Rev. Stats. 2330, 2331. The construction of these is thus clearly stated by the Land Office Regulations, par. 61.

"The foregoing provisions of law are construed to mean that after the 9th day of July, 1870, no location of a placer claim can

be made to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, whatever may be the number of locators associated together, or whatever the regulations of the district may allow; and that from and after May 10, 1872, no location made by an individual can exceed twenty acres, and no location made by an association of individuals can exceed one hundred and sixty acres, which location of one hundred and sixty acres cannot be made by a less number than eight bona fide locators; and no local laws or mining regulations can restrict a placer location to less than twenty acres, although the locator is not compelled to take so much."

A placer location may be in any shape, but should conform to legal subdivisions when the land has been surveyed. Rev. Stats. 2329.1

Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104, 636 (1881). A defendUnited States. ant in ejectment claimed adversely to the title to a

placer claim derived from a patent of the United States bearing date March 29, 1879, which described the premises by metes and bounds, containing one hundred and sixty-four acres and sixty one-hundredths of an acre, more or less. Held, that he could not put in evidence the proceedings in the Land Department for the purpose of showing that the patent was issued upon a single application, including several mining locations, some made after the passage of the act of July 9, 1870, ch. 235 (Rev. Stats. 2330), limiting the location of one person or an association of persons to one hundred and sixty acres, and others made after the act of May 10, 1872 (Rev. Stats. 2331), limiting a location to twenty acres for each individual applicant.

A patent issued subsequently to the passage of the act of 1870 may embrace a placer mining claim consisting of more than one hundred and sixty acres, and including as many locations as the patentee had purchased. The proceedings to obtain a patent therefor are the same as when the claim covers but one location.

Tucker v. Masser, 113, 203 (1885). A patent for a placer claim, composed of distinct mining locations, some of which were made after 1870, and together embracing over one hundred and sixty acres, is valid. Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636, was carefully considered and again affirmed.

Gird v. California Oil Co., 60 Fed. 531 (1894). Under Rev. Stats. 2331 a placer claim located by three persons must be limited to twenty acres when it appears that they are all in the employ and acting in the interest of a single company.

Mitchell v. Cline, 84, 409 (1890). A contract between California. several persons to locate for their joint benefit an amount of placer mining ground exceeding the limit of twenty acres for each individual, and to pretend to satisfy the law by using the names of additional locators who would without consideration convey their in

1 See also Chap. XIV., Div. II.

terests to the contracting parties jointly, is against public policy, and a court of equity will not enforce a trust founded on this contract in favor of one of the contracting parties against another of them who has procured a conveyance to himself individually from one of the Isham locators.

Colorado.

Poire v. Wells, 6, 406 (1882). The restrictions upon the size of locations contained in the acts of 1870 and 1872 do not prevent one from purchasing ground located by others and adding to his own, and a patent for land so acquired is good though it exceed the limit of a location.

LAND OFFICE DECISIONS.

Several placer claims, the possessory title to which is in one person or corporation, may be patented as a single entry, provided they are not situated at wide distances from one another in different land or mining districts, but are, though not contiguous, yet in the same neighborhood. Copp, 78 (1870).

Where an application for patent embraces a placer location properly made and assigned to the applicant, and also additional ground claimed by virtue of a relocation by himself of the original claim enlarging its boundaries, such additional ground must not exceed the amount of twenty acres. Knapp, 2 L. D. 763 (1883).

Owners of contiguous locations need not present separate applications. They may be embraced in one application. (Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636.) Harrison, 2 L. D. 767 (1884).

An application for placer patent may embrace more than one location of one hundred and sixty acres. Samuel E. Rogers, 4 L. D. 284 (1885).

It is the intention of the mining laws generally to permit persons to take a certain quantity of land fit for mining, and not compel them to take such a quantity irrespective of its fitness for mining. Pearsall & Freeman, 6 L. D. 227 (1887).

III. CASES ARISING PRIOR TO THE ACT OF 1872.1

California.

Live Yankee Co. v. Oregon Co., 7, 40 (1857). It was not error to refuse to charge the jury that " any claim of a definite number of feet front and running back into the hill (without any local custom to the contrary), and bounded by an older claim on one side and by vacant ground on the other, will, by implication, run parallel with the line of the older claim; ""in the absence of mining rules, regulating the subject of claims, their courses, distances, etc., the fact that a party has located a claim bounded by another claim raises no implication or inference that the last located claim corresponds in size or in the direction of its lines with the former."

English v. Johnson, 17, 107 (1860). Possibly, if several distinct claims have been consolidated into one, and the rules of the locality allow but one claim to be taken by one man, and after this consolida

1 See above, p. 257.

tion a person should go upon the consolidated claim to work without authority from the owner, his possession might be referred to the particular claim upon which he entered and not to the whole tract; the question might become one of intent. In the absence of any mining rule declaring that a failure to record a claim avoids it, a party may take actual possession of mineral land, though he does not observe the requirements as to the registry and like acts prescribed by the local rules. But if he takes more land than these rules allow, this would not give him title to the excess against any one subsequently entering who complies with the laws and takes up such excess in accordance with them. Where plaintiff claims under purchase and location a defined tract of which he is in possession, and there is no proof that the extent of his claim is opposed to local rules, the presumption is that his possession is rightful.

Prosser v. Parks, 18, 47 (1861). The quantity of ground that a miner may acquire by location or prior appropriation for mining purposes may be limited by the rules and regulations of the district, but not the quantity or the number of claims he may acquire by purchase. Table Mountain Tunnel Co. v. Stranahan, 20, 198 (1862). Upon the question of reasonableness of the extent of a mining location a general custom, whether existing before the location or not, may be given in evidence; but a local rule stands upon a different footing, and is inadmissible to affect the validity of a claim acquired previous to its establishment.

Table Mountain Tunnel Co. v. Stranahan, 21, 548 (1863). ejectment for mining claim it was error to refuse to charge, “No location of a mining claim can be so extended as to amount to a monopoly, and in the absence of local regulation prescribing a limit, recourse must be had to general usage. If the quantity of ground included be unreasonable, the location will not be effectual for any purpose, and possession under it will only be extended to the ground actually occupied. In other words, the extent of the occupancy will determine the extent of the claim, and whether the quantity be reasonable or not must depend upon the customs prevailing generally upon the subject.

Table Mountain Tunnel Co. v. Stranahan, 31, 387 (1866). Where there are no local customs or regulations in force in the district where a mining claim is located, at the time of its location, general customs then in force are admissible upon the question of the reasonableness of its extent, but not evidence of local usage and customs in different localities, varying from each other as to the size of claims located.

If the defendants in an action claim that when they took up the ground in dispute a local custom allowed them three hundred feet front for each man, and that they located to that extent, they are estopped from asserting that the plaintiff's location to the same amount before the adoption of the custom was unreasonable in size.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW MINING CLAIMS ARE HELD.

ASSESSMENT WORK.

AFTER the location of a mining claim is completed and the title thereto is vested in the locator, he retains this until a patent is issued to him, but only upon the condition that he works upon and improves the claim. This obligation is prescribed and regulated by Rev. Stats. 2324, which requires that " 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. On all claims located prior to the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, ten dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made by the tenth day of June, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and each year thereafter, for each one hundred feet in length along the vein until a patent has been issued therefor;" and the act of Jan. 22, 1880, which in addition provides: "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 seventy-two." The policy of these provisions is stated by Miller, J., in Chambers v. Harrington, 111 U. S. 350, as follows: "It is not difficult, in looking at the policy of the government in regard to its mineral lands, to understand the purpose of this provision. For many years after the discovery of the rich deposits of gold and silver in the public lands of the United States, millions of dollars' worth of these metals were taken. out by industrious miners without any notice or attention on the part of the government. The earliest legislation by Congress simply recognized the obligatory force of the local rules of each mining locality in regard to obtaining, transferring and identifying the possession of these parties. Later, provision was made