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Section 2320 Revised Statutes, requires that "the end lines of each (mineral) claim shall be parallel to each other." It frequently occurs, by reason of prior locations or adverse ownership of contiguous lands, that, in order to comply with this requirement of law, the mine owner is compelled to relinquish a small portion of his mine with a portion of his surface ground of triangular shape, and the part thus excluded from his survey is not capable of being appropriated by another location because of its triangular shape, which renders it impossible to embrace it all in any survey with parallel end lines.

The owners of such claims are thus put to loss, while no other person is benefited by said requirement, and small tracts are left in a condition to be practically unavailable.

Legislation amendatory of the present law so far as to remedy the evil indicated is desirable, and I respectfully recommend action to that end by the law-making power.

The legal requirement referred to forms the subject in part of the following circular issued by this office, viz:

TO UNITED STATES SURVEYORS GENERAL:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington D. C., September 13, 1878.

By direction of the Secretary of the Interior, under date of 6th instant, you are hereby instructed as follows:

1st. The survey and plat of mineral claims, required by section 2325 Revised Statutes of the United States, to be filed in the proper land office with application for patent, must be made subsequent to the recording of the location of the mine; and when the original location is made by survey of a United States deputy surveyor, such location survey cannot be substituted for that required by the statute, as above indicated.

2d. The surveyor general should derive his information upon which to base his certificate as to the value of labor expended or improvements made from his deputy who makes the actual survey and examination upon the premises, and such deputy should specify with particularity and full detail the character and extent of such improve

ments.

I desire also to call your attention to section 2320 United States Revised Statutes, referring to vein or lode claims, which requires that "the end lines of each claim shall be parallel to each other."

It appears that in some instances this explicit statutory requirement has deen disregarded. Hereafter you will approve no survey of such claims unless the end lines thereof are parallel to each other.

Promptly instruct your deputy surveyors accordingly.
Very respectfully,

U. J. BAXTER,
Acting Commissioner.

The following decisions affecting mining rights have been made since the last annual report of this office:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, February 19, 1878.

SIR: I have considered the appeal of L. W. Wood et al., from your decision of August 18, 1877, rejecting their application for a patent for the Woodville Placer Mine, lot No. 43, township 16 north, range 9 east, M. D. M. Sacramento, Cal.

This tract was located in 1855, and from that time until 1861 worked continuously, and a large sum of money expended in its development.

In 1858 and 1860, C. H. Seymour became, by purchase, the owner of eight-twentieths of said mine, known as the Nebraska claim, which interest he now asserts, together with an additional interest of six-twentieths he obtained from the locators or their grantees.

There is no copy of the local mining laws governing the location and holding of placer claims, in the district wherein the tract in question is situated, filed in the case by which it can be ascertained whether or not the original locators and their grantees have complied with the local laws and regulations of miners in that district so as to entitle them to the right of possession of said tract, as against adverse claimants. If they have thus complied with the local laws, the land is not subject to relocation by other parties until an abandonment by the original locators is established.

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