tance of three thousand feet, unless such lodes appear upon the surface or were previously known to exist. 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.

17. Notice of Tunnel Location, How Given.-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 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.

18. Recording Notice of Tunnel Location and Sworn Statement.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.

PLACER CLAIMS.

19. Discovery. But one discovery of mineral is required to support a placer location, whether it be of twenty acres by an individual, or of one hundred and sixty acres or less by an association of persons.

20. Placer Entries for Building Stone.-The act of August 4, 1892, extends the mineral land laws so as to bring lands chiefly valuable for building stone within the provisions of said law by authorizing a placer

entry of such lands. Registers and receivers should make a reference to said act on the entry papers in the case of all placer entries made for lands containing stone chiefly valuable for building purposes. Lands reserved for the benefit of public schools or donated to any State are not subject to entry under said act.

21. Oil Location Entries.-The act of February 11, 1897, provides for the location and entry of public lands chiefly valuable for petroleum or other mineral oils, and entries of that nature made prior to the passage of said act are to be considered as though made thereunder.1

22. Ten-acre Tracts are Legal Subdivisions.-By section 2330 authority is given for subdividing forty-acre legal subdivisions into tenacre tracts. These ten-acre tracts should be considered and dealt with as legal subdivisions, and an applicant having a placer claim which conforms to one or more of such ten-acre tracts, contiguous in case of two or more tracts, may make entry thereof, after the usual proceedings, without further survey or plat.

23. [Omitted.]

24. Ten-acre Tracts, How Described.-A ten-acre subdivision may be described, for instance if situated in the extreme northeast of the section, as the "NE. of the NE. 1 of the NE. " of the section, or, in like manner, by appropriate terms, wherever situated; but, in addition to this description, the notice must give all the other data required in a mineral application, by which parties may be put on inquiry as to the land sought to be patented. The proofs submitted with applications must show clearly the character and extent of the improvements upon the premises.

25. Proof of Improvements.-The proof of improvements must show their value to be not less than five hundred dollars and that they were made by the applicant for patent or his grantors. This proof should consist of the affidavit of two or more disinterested witnesses. The annual expenditure to the amount of $100, required by section 2324, Revised Statutes, must be made upon placer as well as lode locations.

26. Application must Disclose Known Lodes Included in Claim.Applicants for patent to a placer claim, who are also in possession of a known vein or lode included therein, must state in their application that the placer includes such vein or lode. The published and posted notices must also include such statement. If veins or lodes lying within a placer location are owned by other parties, the fact should be distinctly stated in the application for patent and in all the notices. But in all cases, whether the lode is claimed or excluded, it must be surveyed and marked upon the plat, the field-notes and plat giving the area of the lode claim or claims and the area of the placer separately. An application which omits to claim such known vein or lode must be construed as a conclusive declaration that the applicant has no right of possession to the vein or lode. Where there is no known lode or vein, the fact must appear by the affidavit of two or more witnesses.

27. Location Never to Exceed One Hundred and Sixty Acres.-By section 2330 it is declared that no location of a placer claim, made after July 9, 1870, shall exceed one hundred and sixty acres for any one person or association of persons, which location shall conform to the United States surveys.

28. Conformation to Public Surveys.-Section 2331 provides that all placer mining claims located after May 10, 1872, shall conform as nearly as practicable with the United States system of public land surveys. and the rectangular subdivisions of such surveys, and such locations shall not include more than twenty acres for each individual claimant. 29. Maximum Locations Permissible.-The foregoing provisions of law are construed to mean that after the ninth 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 local regulations of the district may allow; and that from and after May 10, 1872, no location can exceed twenty acres for each individual participating therein; that is, a location by two persons cannot exceed forty acres, and one by three persons cannot exceed sixty

acres.

30. Marking Placer Locations.-The regulations herein before given as to the manner of marking locations on the ground, and placing the same on record, must be observed in the case of placer locations so far as the same are applicable, the law requiring, however, that all placer mining claims located after May 10, 1872, shall conform as near as practicable with the United States system of public land surveys and the rectangular subdivisions of such surveys, whether the locations are upon surveyed or unsurveyed lands.

When Conformity not Required.-Conformity to the public land surveys and the rectangular subdivisions thereof will not be required where compliance with such requirement would necessitate the placing of the lines thereof upon other prior located claims or where the claim is surrounded by prior locations.

The Same. Where a placer location by one or two persons can be entirely included within a square forty-acre tract, by three or four persons within two square forty-acre tracts placed end to end, by five or six persons within three square forty-acre tracts and by seven or eight persons within four square forty-acre tracts, such locations will be regarded as within the requirements where strict conformity is impracticable.

Policy of Government as to Shape of Locations.-Whether a placer location conforms reasonably with the legal subdivisions of the public. surveys is a question of fact to be determined in each case and no location will be passed to patent without satisfactory evidence in this regard. Claimants should bear in mind that it is the policy of the Government to have all entries whether of agricultural or mineral lands as compact and regular in form as reasonably practicable, and that it will not permit or sanction entries or locations which cut the public

domain into long narrow strips or grossly irregular or fantastically shaped tracts. (Snow Flake Fraction Placer, 37 L. D. 250.)

REGULATIONS UNDER SALINE ACT.

31. Single Locations Only Permitted.-Under the act approved January 31, 1901, extending the mining laws to saline lands, the provisions of the law relating to placer mining claims are extended to all States and Territories and the district of Alaska, so as to permit the location and purchase thereunder of all unoccupied public lands containing salt springs, or deposits of salt in any form, and chiefly valuable therefor, with the proviso, "That the same person shall not locate or enter more than one claim hereunder."

32. Application for Entry or Patent Limited to One Location.-Rights obtained by location under the placer mining laws are assignable, and the assignee may make the entry in his own name; so, under this act a person holding as assignee may make entry in his own name: Provided, he has not held under this act, at any time, either as locator or entryman, any other lands; his right is exhausted by having held under this act any particular tract, either as locator or entryman, either as an individual or as a member of an association. It follows, therefore, that no application for patent or entry, made under this act, shall embrace more than one single location.

33. Oath Accompanying Application for Patent.-In order that the conditions imposed by the proviso, as set forth in the above paragraph, may duly appear, the application for patent must contain or be accompanied by a specific statement under oath by each person whose name appears therein that he never has, either as an individual or as a member of an association, located or entered any other lands under the provisions of this act. The application for patent should also be accompanied by a showing under oath, fully disclosing the qualifications as defined by the proviso, of the applicants' predecessors in interest. (As amended June 4, 1912.)

PROCEDURE TO OBTAIN PATENT TO MINERAL LANDS.

LODE CLAIMS.

34. Survey, Plat and Field-notes.-The claimant is required, in the first place, to have a correct survey of his claim made under authority of the surveyor general of the State or Territory in which the claim lies, such survey to show with accuracy the exterior surface boundaries of the claim, which boundaries are required to be distinctly marked by monuments on the ground. Four plats and one copy of the original field-notes in each case will be prepared by the surveyor-general; one plat and the original field-notes to be retained in the office of the surveyor general; one copy of the plat to be given the claimant for posting upon the claim; one plat and a copy of the field-notes to be given the claimant for filing with the proper register, to be finally transmitted by that officer, with other papers in the case, to this office, and one plat

to be sent by the surveyor general to the register of the proper land district, to be retained on his files for future reference. As there is no resident surveyor general for the State of Arkansas, applications for the survey of mineral claims in said State should be made to the Commissioner of this office, who, under the law. is ex officio the United States surveyor general. (See instructions of July 29, 1911, p. 67.)

35. Survey and Plat must be Filed After Recording of Location Notice. The survey and plat of mineral claims required to be filed in the proper land office with application for patent must be made subsequent to the recording of the location of the claim (if the laws of the State or Territory or the regulations of the mining district require the notice of location to be recorded), and when the original location is made by survey of a United States mineral surveyor such location survey cannot be substituted for that required by the statute, as above indicated.

36. Number of Survey-Connection Survey-Two Mile Limit.—The surveyors general should designate all surveyed mineral claims by a progressive series of numbers, beginning with survey No. 37, irrespective as to whether they are situated on surveyed or unsurveyed lands, the claim to be so designated at date of issuing the order therefor, in addition to the local designation of the claim; it being required in all cases that the plat and field-notes of the survey of a claim must, in addition to the reference to permanent objects in the neighborhood, describe the locus of the claim with reference to the lines of public surveys by a line connecting a corner of the claim with the nearest public corner of the United States surveys, unless such claim be on unsurveyed lands at a distance of more than two miles from such public corner, in which latter case it should be connected with a United States mineral monument. Such connecting line must not be more than two miles in length, and should be measured on the ground direct between the points, or calculated from actually surveyed traverse lines if the nature of the country should not permit direct measurement. If a regularly established survey corner is within two miles of a claim situated on unsurveyed lands, the connection should be made with such corner in preference to a connection with a United States mineral monument. The connecting line or traverse line must be surveyed by the mineral surveyor at the time of his making the particular survey and be made a part thereof.

37. Report of Survey.-(a) Promptly upon the approval of a mineral survey the surveyor general will advise both this office and the appropriate local land office, by letter (Form 4-286), of the date of approval, number of the survey, name and area of the claim, name and survey number of each approved mineral survey with which actually in conflict, name and address of the applicant for survey, and name of the mineral surveyor who made the survey; and will also briefly describe therein the locus of the claim, specifying each legal subdivision or portion thereof, when upon surveyed lands, covered in whole or in part by the survey;