has been settled by an Act of Congress (Feb. 11, 1897, given in full in the Appendix), which authorizes, under the placer provisions of the mining law, locations of "lands containing petroleum or other mineral oils, and chiefly valuable therefor."

FIG. 93. Example of Placer Mine: Nelson Placer Mine, Canyon District, Blue Mts., Oregon.
From pt. II, 22d Ann., U. S. G. S.

The same privilege had, by Act of Congress, Aug. 4, 1892, been extended to lands "chiefly valuable for building stone." Also, on Jan. 31, 1901, Congress passed an Act declaring

"That all unoccupied public land of the United States containing salt

springs, or deposits of salt in any form, and chiefly valuable therefor, are hereby declared to be subject to location and purchase under the provisions of the law relating to placer-mining claims."

The following kinds of mineral are classed by the Land Department as placers, and patented as such: Alum, asphaltum, soda, sulphur, kaolin or fire-clay, borax beds,' auriferous cement, mica, marble, slate, gypsum," and phosphate."

The same rules and observations as to posting, notice, and recording that apply to lode claims apply also to placer claims.

8

A location by one person may include land not to exceed 20 acres. If the land on which the location is made is surveyed, the location must conform to such survey, as nearly as practicable, the smallest subdivision considered being 10 acres in square form. Five acre rectangular tracts are not recognized.8a The fact that, if a placer location were made to conform as nearly as possible to the system of public land surveys, it would embrace small portions of land not valuable as placer ground is no excuse for failing to conform to the legal subdivisions where, if so confirmed, the land as a whole would be more valuable for placer mining than for agricultural purposes. The requirement of conformity as nearly as practicable to the system of United States land survey applies with equal force whether the ground is located on surveyed or unsurveyed land. On unsurveyed land the conformity to the system of United States land surveys is sufficient if claims are located in rectangular form with lines east and west, north and south, and with proper dimensions to make at least ten acres. "Gulch placers," however, may be located according to environment, but as nearly as practicable in conformity with the land survey system. 8

The statutory provision allowing 160 acres to be patented to an association of eight persons has been made the vehicle of rank fraud on the Government. One person locates 160 acres, using the names of seven "dummies," who afterward convey to him. When this species of fraud is proved, it will not be allowed to stand by the courts."

9 Mitchell vs. Cline, 84 Calif., 409; Gird vs. Calif., etc., Co., 60 Fed., 531; Durrant vs. Corbin,

94 Fed., 382.

sd

The United States statute does not require the marking of the boundaries of a placer claim, but the Land Office has established a rule requiring the same markings as for quartz claims.10 It has been expressly decided by the Supreme Court of Arkansas " that the boundary line of placer claims must be marked the same as quartz claims; and there are statutory provisions to that effect in most of the mining States.12

14

At first the California Superme Court took the same view of this subject as the Arkansas court and Lindley,13 but in a late case it expressly overrules these decisions and holds that where placer ground has been surveyed, and the locations made according to legal subdivisions, that the boundaries need not be marked on the ground, nor is any other description necessary than by legal subdivision.

Representation work or annual labor is required to hold a placer as well as a quartz claim, although there is nothing in the statute. requiring annual labor on placer claims.15 This is stated to be an instance where by judicial oversight a wrong interpretation was placed on a statute and was afterward followed as a precedent without examination until such incorrect interpretation had attained the binding course of law as fully as if it had been the correct one.16

Patents to placer claims are obtained by the same procedure as those to quartz claims, except that where they conform to a previous land survey no further surveys or plats are required. Also where the placer claims contain a vein or lode, special provision as to obtaining title to such included vein is made."7

1. If there is a known lode or vein within the placer claim, it may be surveyed or included and patented together with the placer claim. Twenty-five feet of ground on each side of the lode must be included therewith and paid for at the rate of $5 per acre. 18

419.

10 See Land Office, rule 64, Appendix. 11 Worthen vs. Sidway, 79 S. W., 777

12 See Lindley on Mines, 2d ed., sec. 454.

13 White vs. Lee, 78 Calif., 593, 21 Pac., 363; Anthony vs. Jillson, 83 Calif., 296, 23 Pac.,

14 Kern Oil Co. vs. Crawford, 76 Pac., III.

15 Carney vs. Arizona M. Co., 65 Calif., 40; Morgan vs. Tillottson, 15 Pac., 88; Chapman vs. Toy Long, 4 Sawy., 28; Jackson vs. Roby, 109 U. S., 440; Sweet vs. Webber, 7 Colo., 443.

16 An interesting history of the matter is given in Morrison's "Mining Rights," 12th ed., p. 102. 17 R. S., sec. 2333.

18 Aurora Hill M. Co vs. 85 M. Co., 34 Fed., 515.

2. Where a vein or lode is known to exist within a placer, all right to it is waived unless claimed and included in the placer location as above, and it is open to location by any one."

18a

3. Where there is no known vein at the time of patenting, the title to all valuable minerals within vertical planes through the boundaries of the claim pass, including any after-discovered lodes.

A good deal of litigation has arisen over what constitutes a "known" vein or lode in this connection. The United States Supreme Court held that the fact, that a lode was known to exist 300 ft. from the boundary of a placer claim, was not evidence that there was a known lode in the placer location.19 However, a regularly located and recorded lode within a placer claim is a known lode within the meaning of the statute, even though the placer claimant has no knowledge of its existence.20 Also, it is sufficient to exclude it where the lode has been notoriously cut in a tunnel within the claim.21

On the other hand, it has been held that lode or outcrops. known but not considered worth locating, or not having sufficient value to justify exploration for working, are not within the exception of the patent.22

If a lode is discovered at any time before application for patent it will be excepted, even though not known to exist at the date of location.23

ANCIENT BURIED PLACERS

Old placer deposits which have become buried beneath lava flows or other strata give a form of ore deposit the legal status of which may be said to be still doubtful. The question is whether such a body comes within the provisions relating to placers or whether they come within the section relating to veins and lodes, according to the liberal interpretation and very wide scope given to the latter form of deposits by the decisions of the courts that we have discussed above.

184 Mutchmore vs. McCarty, 87 Pac., 85.

19 Dahl vs. Raunheim, 132 U. S., 260.

20 Noyes vs. Mantle, 127 U. S., 348.

21 Iron-Silver Co. vs. Starr, etc., Co., 143 U. S., 394.

22 McConaghy vs. Doyle, 75 Pac., 419: O'Keef vs. Cannon, 52 Fed., 898; Brownfield vs. Bier, 39 Pac., 461; Butte Co. vs. Sloan, 40 Pac., 217; Montana, etc., Co. vs. Migeon, 68 Fed., 811, 77 Fed., 249: Casey vs. Thieviege, 48 Pac., 394: Mutchmore vs. McCarty, 87 Pac., 85.

23 Dahl vs. Raunheim, 132 U. S., 260.

The first case involving this question that came before any court was Gregory vs. Pershbacker, 73 Calif., 109, in which case it was decided that buried placers are not locatable as lodes. The description of the deposit as given in the report of the case is as follows:

"in the year 1856, John Barrett, and others associated with him, discovered on the westerly bank of Little Butte Creek, on the southeast quarter of said section 13, a thin seam of gravel cropping out between an underlying bed of slate-rock and an overlying bed of lava-rock, and finding that the said seam of gravel was gold-bearing, located the same as and for a mining claim, under the name and designation of Burch and Barrett Claim, and thereupon commenced to work and develop their said claim by excavating a tunnel into the hill, following the course of the channel, and the said channel became thicker and better developed and more valuable as they pursued and ex

FIG. 94.

Generalized section of an ancient, buried placer, with technical terms as used in California; a, volcanic cap; b, upper lead; c, bench gravel; d, channel gravel, e, bed-rock; f, rim.

plored the same into the hill, and showed that the said deposit was a welldeveloped channel, varying from a few inches to 8 and 10 feet in thickness, and from 8 or 10 to 40 feet in breadth, with a well-defined bed and side walls of slate-rock, and capped by a thin stratum of clay, with an overlying body of lava-rock for hanging wall . . . that said channel in its course into the hill descends or drops at an angle on an average of about 8 degrees; that the bed-rock of said channel during its entire length, so far as worked, is composed of a slate formation, and upon that slate formation said gravel rests, and over said gravel is a formation of clay gouge overlapping said mineral deposit, and that above said clay seam is the lava which extends to the surface, and that the overlying lava rock at the point where said channel crosses the easterly line of the said southwest quarter aforesaid is about 600 feet in