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The Bureau of Mines, in carrying out one of the provisions of its organic act-to disseminate information concerning investigations made-prints a limited free edition of each of its publications.

When this edition is exhausted, copies may be obtained at cost price only through the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.

The Superintendent of Documents is not an official of the Bureau of Mines. His is an entirely separate office and he should be addressed:

SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS,

Government Printing Office.
Washington, D. C.

The general law under which publications are distributed prohibits the giving of more than one copy of a publication to one person. The price of this publication, paper cover, is $1.00.

First edition. September, 1920.

PREFACE.

The Bureau of Mines has, as a part of its educational activities, been engaged in collecting, codifying, and publishing Federal and State mining statutes. The work was first undertaken because of the uncertainties of the Federal statutes relating to the location of metal-mining claims and because of the supposed conflict between the laws of Congress and of the statutes of the several States relating to the same subject.

The congressional enactments governing the location of mining claims upon the public domain had been in force for practically half a century. These had been supplemented by local statutes of the various metal-mining States, and all had undergone numerous and various interpretations by the Federal and State courts. In collecting and codifying the Federal mining statutes it was considered necessary to give in connection with each section of the Revised Statutes and each independent act abstracts of the decisions of all the courts where any of these enactments had come under judicial review.

This work was given to the public as Bulletin 94, Bureau of Mines, entitled "United States Mining Statutes Annotated." The cordial reception of the work by the public, and particularly by all classes of persons engaged in metal mining and the various branches of the mineral industry, and the steady and continued sale of the bulletin has been gratifying to the bureau and has justified the publication.

The bureau has also undertaken the collection and annotation of the mining statutes of the States in which mining forms any considerable part of the industries. The purpose of the State publications is to emphasize the laws and regulations best adapted to increase safety in the great army of miners employed and to promote efficiency in mining, as well as to conserve the various deposits of minerals. The purpose is also to bring into comparison and contrast the best enactments of the several States, and thereby aid the several legislative bodies in forming the best mining laws.

The bureau confidently hopes that the collection of these State statutes, together with the judicial construction placed thereon by the courts, may lead ultimately to a uniform mining code. The migratory disposition of miners and the duties imposed upon them by the statutes of the different States demand that there should be

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