work required. 7. Law needed for centuries of mining. 8. Congress alone can estab-
lish uniformity. 9. Miners' regulations in Nevada county. 10. Miners' regulations in
Sierra county. 11. Miners' regulations in Tuolumne county. 11 J. 'Miners' regulations
in Sacramento county. 12. Miners' regulations in Columbia district. 13. Miners' regu-
lations in North San Juan district. 14. Miners' regulations in Pilot Hill district. 15.
Miners' regulations in New Kanaka camp. 16. Miners' regulations in Copperopolis dis-
trict, 17. Statute of -Nevada. 18. Blank district, Nevada 19. Virginia district, Ne-
vada. 20. Regulations of Reese River district. 21. Quartz statute of Oregon. 22.
Quartz statute of Idaho. 23. Quartz statute of Arizona. 24. The mining laws of
Mexico.



1. MINING LAWS.

Mining for gold and silver is a business new in Anglo-Saxon life, and not
provided for in our laws. Suddenly the American government has found itself
in the possession of the richest deposits of the precious metals in the world,
with the certainty that the mining industry based upon them will be one of the
greatest and most permanent* interests of the country. It is necessary now to
foster this industry, to protect it, to frame a code of laws that will leave every
possible liberty to the miner who wishes to work fairly in extracting the metal
from the earth, and will throw every possible obstruction in the way of the
drones and swindlers who wish to defraud the honest laborer by compelling him
to pay for the right of working mines that should be open to him without
charge.

And, first, let us look at the regulations adopted by the miners and the
statutes adopted by certain States and Territories in regard to mining for gold
and silver.

It is impossible to obtain, within the brief time allowed for this preliminary
report, a complete collection of the mining regulations, and they are so nume-
rous that they would fill a volume of a thousand pages. There are not less
than five nundred mining districts in California, two hundred in Nevada, and
one hundred each in Arizona, Idaho, and Oregon, each with its set of written
regulations. The main objects of the regulations are to fix the boundaries of
the district, the size of the claims, the manner in which claims shall be marked
and recorded, the amount of work which must be done to secure the title, and
the circumstances under which the claim is considered abandoned and open to
occupation by new claimants. The districts usually do not contain more than
a hundred square miles, frequently not more than ten, and there are in places a



WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 227

dozen within a radius of ten miles. In lode raining, the claims are usually two
hundred feet long on the lode ; in placers the size depends on the character of
the diggings and the amount of labor necessary to open them. In hill diggings,
where the pay dirt is reached by long tunnels, the claim is usually a hundred
feet wide, and reaches to the middle of the hill. Neglect to work a placer claim
for ten days in the season when it can be worked is ordinarily considered as an
abandonment. The regulations in the different districts are so various, however,
that it is impossible to reduce them to a few classes comprehending all their
provisions. The States of Nevada and Oregon and the Territories of Idaho
and Arizona have each adopted statutes in regard to the size and tenure of
mining claims, and these statutes, so far as they conflict with the district regu-
lations, probably supersede them, although the act of the last session of Con-
gress to legalize the occupation of the mineral lands provides for the issue of
patents to only the^ holders of those lode claims which are occupied and im-
proved according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the
same is located.*

Question might arise whether the statute of the State or Territory is to be
recognized as of any force in determining the right of claimants to patents. The
congressional act mentions only " the local custom or rules of miners in the dis-
trict;" and those words certainly do not describe a statute; and yet the statute
should be preferred, because it is uniform, clear, preserved in unquestionable
records, accessible to all, and of precise jurisdiction ; whereas the local customs
and rules are various, and in many districts indefinite, unrecorded, almost inac-
cessible, and conflicting in their jurisdiction.

The evils of the system of local customs and rules are well stated in a report
made to the senate of Nevada on the 23d February last by the committee on
mines and mining. The subject under consideration was the adoption of a
general statute to supersede these local customs and rules. The committee
say:

" In the establishment of a code of mining laws in this connection there are
certain self-evident principles which should be adopted

" First. The interest in question being coextensive with the area of the State,
and intimately blended with every part of it, the laws which seek to regulate it
should be general in their character, uniform in their application, and universal
in their dissemination.

" Second. It being a vital and permanent interest, the laws which govern it
should have the vitality and stability of legislative enactment,

" Third. It being an interest pertaining to our own people, but valueless to them
without foreign aid, the aim of the laws should be twofold, to give protection
to our citizens and encouragement to capital."

Does the present system answer all or any of these requirements ?

1. As to uniformity : there is now nothing approaching it. There never was
confusion worse confounded. More than two hundred petty districts within the
limits of a single State, each one with its self-approved code; these codes, dif-
fering not alone each from each other, but presenting numberless instances of

* SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person or association of per-
sons 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 not less than one thousand dollars, and in re-
gard to whose possession there is no controversy or opposing claim, it shall or may be lawful
for such claimant or association of claimants to file in the local land office a diagram of the
same, so extended laterally or otherwise as to conform to the local laws, customs, and rules
of miners, and to enter such tract and to receive a patent therefor, granting such mine, to-
gether 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.



228 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES

contradiction in themselves. The law of one point is not the law of another
five miles distant ; and a little further on will be a code which is the law of
neither of the former, and so on ad infinitum, with the further disturbing fact
superadded that the written laws themselves may be overrun by some peculiar
" custom " which can be found nowhere recorded, and the proof of which will vary
with the volume of interested affidavits which may be brough.t on either side to
establish it.

Again, in one district the work required to be done to hold a claim is nominal ;
in another, exorbitant ; in another, abolished ; in another, adjourned from year to
year. A stranger, seeking to ascertain the law, is surprised to learn that there
is no satisfactory public record to which he can refer ; no public officer to whom
he may apply who is under any bond or obligation to furnish him information
or guarantee its authenticity. Often in the newer districts he finds there is not the
semblance of a code, but a simple resolution adopting the code of some other dis-
trict, which may be a hundred miles distant. What guarantee has he for invest-
ment of either capital or labor under such a system ]

Again, under the present loose organization of districts, with their vagueness
of boundary, it is often impossible to determine by which code of laws a location
is governed. Cases of this kind have already arisen in several districts, and are
liable to do so again in any part of the State; and, tinder the present system,
there is no means of guarding against it, except by an actual survey of the
boundaries of every district an incalculable expense.

2. As to permanency of regulations, even such as they are, there is now no
guarantee even of that. A miners' meeting adopts a code; it apparently is the
law. Some time after, on a few days' notice, a corporal's guard assembles, and,
on simple motion, radically changes the whole system by which claims may be
held in a district. Before a man may traverse the State, the laws of a district,
which by examination and study he may have mastered, may be swept away,
and no longer stand as the laws which govern the interest he may have acquired;
and the change has been one which by no reasonable diligence could he be ex-
pected to have knowledge of. But if the laws be uniform, "and registered upon
the statute book of the State, he will have security in his tenure, and reasonable
notice of any change therein.

3. As to protection to the miner and encouragement to the capitalist, the
present system, or lack of system, affords neither. The cause of uncertainty of
titles to land in our sister State did not, through fifteen years of her history,
more paralyze her progress than the uncertainty of mining titles in the outside
districts now retards our development. Five years ago a horde of greedy
prospectors from every part of the Pacific coast swept over our State, leaving their
notices of location on every "dip, spur, and angle," "thick as leaves inVallam
brosa;" and, after a year or two of feverish unrest, swarmed away again to the
newer fields of Idaho and Montana, leaving nothing to mark their passage but
their faded " notices " mouldering on the hillside, their pitiful burlesque of
development in the way of assessment-work, and the threatening terrors of the
common-law doctrine as to "vested rights." This is what the true citizens of
Nevada, those who, never losing faith in her future, have adhered to her for-
tunes in sunshine and gloom, now reap from the ruinous system of ttnlegalized
district laws. They see thousands of claims in which capital would be eager to
engage, could satisfactory title be given, now lying neglected because there is
no system of abandonment as yet, or sufficient legislative or judicial sanction to
gain the confidence of business men. Such will not be satisfied with a " general
belief," or an " evident tendency of decisions ; " they insist on definite enact-
ment or positive adjudication. In vain do our people relocate abandoned mines
in accordance with the only laws which govern the matter. When such titles
are presented to the capitalist his first inquiry is : " What is the authority for so



WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 229

doing 1 Has your legislature authorized it ? Has your judiciary sanctioned it 1
If not, where is the security for investment ?"

As an instance of the manner in which the mining regulations are changed
and the mining records neglected, the experience of North San Juan, one of
the most prosperous and permanent mining towns, may be given here.

The Sweetland mining district was organized and a series of regulations
adopted for it in 1850, when claims were restricted to thirty feet square. In
1 852 the size was enlarged to eighty by one hundred and eighty feet, and the
regulations were changed several times in other respects. In 1853 the Sweet-
land district was subdivided into three smaller districts, of which North San
Juan is one. This latter adopted a set of regulations at the time of its organi-
zation, arid adopted the set now in force a year later. A mining recorder was
elected in 1854, but he has been absent from the district for five years, and no
one has been chosen to fill the place. The regulations are treated , by many
persons as if they were no longer in force at least, as regards certain points ;
and in many cases it would be difficult to ascertain whether there is any good
title to claims under the regulations.

2. NEED OF CONGRESSIONAL MINING LAW.

I would suggest that the act of last session should be so amended that, in
the granting of patents, State and territorial statutes in regard to the size,
possession, working, and abandonment of claims should be regarded as of
higher authority than the "local custom or rules;" and I venture to recommend
further that a congressional act should be passed prescribing the manner of *
taking up, recording, working, and abandoning mining claims so long as the *
title remains in the United States, so that uniformity shall prevail throughout
the whole country. Such an act, based on the laws and regulations of which
copies are given on subsequent pages, would, I am confident, give general satis-
faction to the miners, as securing their equal rights. As it is now, there is
great diversity.

The following list shows some of the differences in the size of the claims :

Arizona, under statute, 600 feet square.

Oregon, under statute, 300 feet on the lode by 150 feet wide.

Idaho, under statute, 200 feet on the lode by 100 feet wide.

Nevada, under statute, 200 feet en the lode by 200 feet wide.

Nevada county, California, miners' regulations, 100 feet.

Tuolumne county, California, miners' regulations, 150 feet on the lode and
150 feet on each side.

Sierra county, California, miners' regulations, 250 feet on the lode and 250
feet on each side.

Copperopolis district, California, miners' regulations, 150 feet on the lode and
250 feet on each side of the lode by 300 feet wide.

In most districts of Nevada and in many of California a miner may claim for
each person in his company 200 feet on the lode, but he acquires no exclusive
right of possession to the adjoining land, except in so far as he may have to
occupy it in his mining operations. In Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, and some dis-
tricts of California and Nevada, the mine may take a considerable tract on the
sides of. the lode. If we compare the size of the claims simply in relation to
the length on the lode, we see that, taking the space allowed to the miner in
Nevada county, California, as the unit of measurement, the miner in .the State
of Nevada gets twice as much, in Oregon thrice as much, and in Arizona six
times as much. There is no good reason why the claims should not be .of the
same size in all these places. The act of Congress provides in section 4 " That
no location hereafter made shall exceed two hundred feet in length along the
vein for each locator, with an additional claim for discovery to the discoverer



230 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES

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 : And provided further,
That no person may make more than one location on the same lode, and not
more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by anv associa-
tion of persons." These provisions reduce the length of the claims to be located
hereafter in Arizona and Oregon to two hundred feet for each person ; but they
do not authorize any enlargements of the claim in the districts where the limit
is less than the two hundred feet. And yet justice and sound policy require
that a miner should be permitted to take up as large a claim in Nevada county
or in Tuolumne county, California, as in Oregon or Arizona.

3. THE CUSTOMARY LIMITATION OF SIZE.

The limitation is, however, more apparent than real. If John Smith sup-
poses a lode to be rich, he selects a portion three thousand feet long, puts a
stake at each end, with a notice, and files with the recorder of the district or
county, a notice that he and fourteen associates have taken up that claim. If
he imagines that there is some rich ground outside of the three thousand feet,
he takes another claim of three thousand feet, in the names of fifteen friends
not mentioned in the first notice. He may have no authority from those persons
to take claims for them, but.no one objects in such a case. If John Smith now
desires to own more than his two hundred feet, he goes to the men whose names
he has put down, and requests them to give him a bill of sale for one hundred
feet, or one hundred and fifty feet each, and as they owe their claims to him,
they cannot refuse. Then, instead of being the owner of only two hundred
feet, he can become, with little trouble or expense, the owner of three or four
thousand feet. He can hold as many feet by purchase as he pleases. There is
no limitation in any county to the amount of mining claim that can be held by
one person by purchase ; but in Mexico no company can locate more than four
times as much as the claim of a single individual, and there is less opportunity
for the abuse of which mention has been made. It would be advisable, in my
opinion, to amend the act of last session so that no claim for any company shall
exceed sixteen hundred or two thousand feet in length. Th3 Mexican law fixes
the limitation at two hundred varas, or about twenty-two hundred feet. I
would recommend further that, in the proposed change in the length of claims,
each individual should be entitled to hold by location not more than five hundred
feet. The valuable claims are usually found by solitary miners, or by small
parties of not more than three. When such, or a miner or party, finds a place
in a rich lode, there is no good reason why he or they should be compelled by
the law to give most of it away to friends, as is done under the present law and
custom. Three locators get only six hundred feet out of three thousand, or one-
fifth. They may request their friends to convey to them one-half of the remain-
ing four-fifths, but oftentimes they fear that such request would give offence, and
if the claim turns out to be valuable, most of the benefit goes to persons who
have done nothing to discover the mine. It would be better to offer a larger
reward to the miner, and not compel him to give so much to his friends. Two
hundred feet is not enough on ordinary lodes for a mining enterprise; the pay-
streak of rock may run down obliquely lengthwise in the vein, and the miner
wants to know that he can follow it for a considerable distance in his claim. If
two miners should find a rich place in a quartz lode, and could trace it for eight
hundred feet along the lode, and were satisfied that the mine would prove profit-
able from the start, and were doubtful whether any part of the lode beyond the
eight hundred feet would pay, it is evident that they would rather own the eight
hundred feet by location than be compelled to give half of it to other persons.
The knowledge that location could acquire more than two hundred feet by loca-



WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 231

tion would encourage prospecting. If, on the other hand, the lode contained
only a moderate quantity of valuable ore, and could not be made to pay until
after an investment of more capital than the two had at their command, then
they could make up the original company of ei^ht persons, with one hundred
feet to each ; or they could take up the claim in their two names, and each could
sell or give away portions of his share to friends who would furnish money. By
increasing the amount that each individual can hold by location, the miner has
everything to gain and nothing to lose. If the mine will pay from the start, the
profit goes to the man who deserves it ; if the mine requires outside capital for
its development, the miner can obtain it as readily as at present. The Spanish
iaw which was framed in 1783, after an experience of two hundred and fifty
years, and is now in force throughout Spanish America, allows each locator to
hold two hundred varas, or five hundred and fifty feet. The quartz regulations
of California were most of them framed about 1852 and 1853, with no experi-
ence, and under the influence of persons familiar only with the small claims cus-
tomary in the placers. It is true that many of the regulations have been re-
enacted at later dates, but the old influences have not been broken up. There
is now a disposition to find fault with the California regulations, and to prefer
the provisions of the Mexican law, as to the size of claims.

4. PROPOSED WIDTH OF CLAIMS.

-

A claim should cover not only the lode but a certain area on both sides. The
act of Congress allows a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient work-
ing of the same, as fixed by ' local rules." Here again the "local rules" alone
are recognized. What is a " reasonable" quantity of surface ? In Arizona it is
three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the lode ; in Oregon it is twenty-
five feet on each side of the lode ; in Idaho it is a tract one hundred feet wide ;
in Tuolumne county, California, it is one hundred and fifty feet on each side of
the lode ; in Sierra county, California, it is two hundred and fifty feet wide on
each side ; in the Copperopolis district it is three hundred feet wide ; in the State
of Nevada, Nevada county, California, and in many other counties of California,
it is all the land that is actually occupied by the works of the company or miner,
and no more. Under the customs in those districts in which the miner obtained
no fixed quantity of surface, he never laid claim to any portion outside of his
lode, except as he occupied it for his tunnel, shaft, mill, dwelling, ditch, dump,
reservoir for tailings, or something of the sort ; if he had all his works at one end
of his claim, he had no title to any of the surface of the other end ; any other
miner might then take up another lode within ten feet of his and work it. The
law of Mexico, the statutes of Arizona, Oregon and Idaho, and the regulations
of Tuolumne and Sierra counties, authorize the miner to occupy a specific amount
of surface, and all the minerals within that area belong to him, whether he
has discovered all the lodes within it or not. It often happens that large veins
have branches or spurs, which at the surface appear as if they were parallel
veins, and when the main vein is opened and found to be ridh, outsiders, if not
forbidden by the laws or regulations, make a custom of claiming the spurs and
branches, in the hope that they may prove to be independent lodes, or in the
, expectation of making money out of them before the connection can be proved,
or for the purpose of compelling the owner of the main lode to buy them out,
and thus save the expense of litigation. Such claims upon spurs, and the liti-
gation resulting from them, have been among the most important facts in the his-
tory of Virginia City, and they have been common in many of the quartz districts
of California. They are among the greatest evils that beset lode mining in cer-
tain counties. It was mainly to prevent this kind of fraud, for it is scarcely
possible to give any oiJjer name to it as generally practiced, that the law of
Mexico authorized the imner to hold a tract five hundred and fifty feet wide at



232 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES

right angles to the course of the lode, and thus he could cover any ground which
he found interlopers might want to claim. The purpose was not so much to give
him room for working, as to secure his title and protect him from litigation and
troublesome neighbors. Under every set of regulations, customs, or local rules,
arid under every code of mining law, the owner of the main vein under the first
location owns all the spurs ; but he may not be able to prove for years that it is
a spur. This was the case in several important suits in Virginia City, where the
spur was not traced to its union with the main vein until the miners had gone
down five hundred feet, and they did not reach that depth till after years of
working. There may be, and no doubt are, cases in which two valuable and
independent lodes are found within two hundred feet of each other ; and in such
instances it would perhaps be injurious to the mining interest to let the first
claimant have both lodes, but such cases would be very rare. As a matter of
fact there is no complaint among miners of any evil caused by giving a claim to
a fixed area of surface, whereas there is great complaint about the license of