The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-05-11

J society of America, at the Engineer
club, New York, April 10, construe
. tive program for the amendment of tn,
present mining laws of the Unite,
States was considered. The meetml
was we'll attended. The subioinet
memorandum was introduced
The following is an outline Of thu
main provisions regarded as necessary
for the Improvement of the Unitet
States mineral land law. 1t is intend.
phraseology to be used, but the oh.
jects to be secured; and it Is under.
stood that in the proposed Legislation
all existing or vested rights shall be
recognized and also that all provisions
of the present United States statutes
and department regulations not con-
f1icting with the new statute shall re-
main in full force, unaffected thereby
This includes section 2,319 of the re-
vised statutes, declaring all valuable
mineral deposits in lands belonging to
the United States to be free and open
to exploration and purchase, and the
lands in which they are found to oc-
cupation and purchase, etc.
The new legislation proposed is to
secure the following principal chan
ges:
l. The survey of the public lands to
be completed as soon as possible and
all surveyed lands to be classified as
mineral or nonmineral according to the
meaning of these terms now establish
ed by the United States statute or
| judicial decisions; such classification,
officially announced, to be final until
subsequently changed by the govern
ment and no such subsequent change
to affect the rights of location under
the former classification. Lands
thus designated as mineral to be open
to the location of mineral claims only
and lands designated as nonmineral
not to be open to the location of min
eral claims.
III. Mineral claims hereafter located
to be $50 feet square-that is, 10 acres
Inc size and square in form--with
boundaries running north and south
and east and west. Such claims, when
located on surveyed land, shall be sub
divisions of the surveyed sections.
Note--This area is about the same
as that of the 300x1, 500 foot claims of
Colorado. The location would be, of
course, subject to all prior rights, sur
face or underground; and in many
districts, claims already located may
leave only remnants of area not suit
able in size or shape for separate To-
cations. In such cases the practice
now authorized by the supreme court
OF establishing Imaginary boundaries"
that is, of claiming the full area of
a claim and then disclaiming the parts
be followed. If such a location has no
extralateral rights, it will cause no
special trouble. The purpose of this
provision is, so far as existing rights
do not prevent, to make mineral claims
as easy to define as agricultural ones.
III. Any number of claims to be To-
Gated by one person or association;
and upon lands already surveyed and
officially classified as mineral, the ac-
tual discovery of a valuable deposit
not to be necessary to valid location.
wi fino 10 fV,or %1on
marketing, notice and record of loca-
ton to be continued, with the addf-
tional requirement that within one
year after the date of location re-
cord thereof shall be made in the Uni
ted States land office of the land dis
trict.
w The present requirement of 500
annual work upon each claim, to be
ammended by providing that 500 per
claim may be paid annually into the
United States land office in lieu Of
the performance of such work. A per-
son or association holding a group of
contiguous claims to be permitted to
do assessment work upon one claim
and thereby hold the group, but such
work to be Of amount equivalent to
800 for each claim of the group. If
any person or association perform as
sessment work in any one year to the
value of 500, or more, in excess Of
what is required to be done in any one
year, the excess may be applied to sue
ceeding years, provided, however, that
no fractions of 800 shall be consider
ed for this purpose. Proceedings for
patent to remain as now.
V. Subject to the existing extralat-
eral rights of mining claimants or pat
entees, the holder or patentee of a
mining claim located hereafter to have
the exclusive right of possession and
enjoyment Of the surface held by him
and of the minerals under it, bounded
by vertical planes passing through
surface boundaries of said land, but
not the right to follow any mineral
deposit beyond the said planes. And
the holders or patentees of claims
heretofore located to have similar ex-