will be to determine to what class it belongs. Its solution then becomes comparatively easy.

This guiding principle was thus early stated by Judge Hallett: "Courts usually try to find out the correct principle upon which a cause should be decided, and when once, after some attention to the subject, they have arrived at a conclusion as to the rule which shall be observed in any cause, it is regarded as a decision which may be followed in subsequent actions of the same character."1

Applying these rules to the matter in hand, we shall find our difficulties materially lessened by the classification we have suggested.

§ 823. Same-The perfect location. From what we have attempted to demonstrate in these pages, it must be quite apparent that a perfect location, that is to say, one made in the form of a perfect parallelogram with the apex and strike of the vein crossing both end lines, presents no question for consideration and opens no field for discussion or contention, except in a case presenting the broad-vein theory, as suggested in the preceding article, and those cases presenting for consideration cross-veins, spurs and offshoots, as hereinafter considered. The cases which have engaged the attention of the courts are those where the location, generally from want of knowledge of the actual course and strike of the vein, or haste in making the location, or both, has not been correctly laid along the strike of the vein, so as to completely cover the apex thereof. The other condition, presenting substantially the same question, when the facts are ascertained, is the one where side lines become end lines. We will therefore present these two questions together in our detailed classification. The matters thus presented for consideration can be best understood by a

§ 824. Detailed classification of apex cases, division of the questions involved, and an illustration of the matter by drawings. We shall find it convenient, therefore, to discuss the different questions under different heads; and

1 Iron Silver M. Co. v. Murphy, 3 Fed. Rep. 368, 369.

First. The perfect location, where the vein crosses both end lines.

Second. Its perfect cognate, with positions of the lines reversed, where the side lines become end lines. These questions will be considered together.

Third. Cases presenting the question of veins crossing an end line and a side line, with the extent of extra-lateral rights acquired thereby, and its effect upon the rest of the claim.

Fourth. Veins crossing one line and another not parallel therewith, as where end lines of a claim are not parallel, or where the claim consists of a group of locations, including a full consideration of the result of so grouping. The third and fourth subdivisions will be considered together, being essentially analogous in principle.

Fifth. Veins crossing the same line twice, or whose known apex begins and ends within a claim.

Sixth. Cases where extra-lateral rights are abridged or denied, and the reasons therefor.

Seventh. The effect and result of amending locations before patent and placing the lines thereof upon patented ground. And first

825. Of the perfect location. As elsewhere said,' the perfect location, providing the apex is entirely within the claim, or the substantial and controlling part thereof so within it, and where the apex crosses both end lines and there are no spurs, offshoots, cross or intersecting veins, the facts being ascertained, presents absolutely no question for adjudication. The rights of the owner of such a vein are simple, plain and easy of ascertainment, and cannot possibly present any question for solution. He has the right to follow the vein so found on its downward course or dip endlessly between the planes made by the end lines of the location extended in their own direction and produced through the dip of the vein.2

1 Ante, § 823.

2 R. S. U. S., § 2322.

§ 826. The same principle involved, positions reversed, where side lines become end lines- The Flagstaff case.Since parallelism of end lines is essential only for the purpose of circumscribing the rights of the claim owner on his vein as he proceeds to the depth, and since it is well settled that the purpose of the statute is only given full force and effect when the claim owner is given the same number of feet of the dip of the vein, wherever it may go, that he has of the apex, it becomes too plain for contradiction or question that when two parallel lines are so crossed by the vein, no matter what name the miner has bestowed upon them in making his location, the law will denominate them as end lines, beyond which he will not be permitted to pursue the vein on its strike in either direction, and only between which lines continued in their own direction will he be allowed to follow it on its dip.

An illustration of this principle is found in the very case where it was first announced, and is shown by the diagram on page 716.

The vein in dispute was conceded to have its apex in the Nabob claim and extended thence easterly into the Virginia, crossing both side lines of the Flagstaff, and continuing into the South Star and Titus, or as it was known in the case, The Titus No. 2 claim, which lay northerly of the Virginia and conflicted with it. The ore bodies in dispute are represented as being between the tunnel level and the third level as shown by the lines on the map; the dip being northeasterly.

Mr. Justice Bradley, in marking out the rights of the parties under such a location, laid down the law which hast been followed without cavil or criticism, in the following words: "It was not the intent of the law to allow a person to make his location crosswise of a vein so that the side. lines shall cross it, and thereby give him the right to follow

1 Cons. Wyoming G. M. Co. v. Champion M. Co., 63 Fed. Rep. 540, 549; Leadville M. Co. v. Fitzgerald,

15 Fed. Cas. 98, No. 8,158, 4 M. R. 385; Doe v. Waterloo M. Co., 54 Fed. Rep. 935.

the strike of the vein outside of his side lines. That would subvert the whole system songht to be established by the law. If he does locate his claim in that way, his rights must be subordinated to the rights of those who have prop

erly located on the lode. Their right to follow the dip outside of their side lines cannot be interfered with by him. His right to the lode only extends to so much of the lode as his claim covers. If he has located crosswise of the lode, and his claim is only one hundred feet wide, that one hundred feet is all he has a right to. This we consider to be the law as to locations on lodes or veins. The location of the plaintiffs in error is thus laid across the Titus lode, that is to say, across the course of its apex at or near the surface; and the side lines of the location are really the end lines of their claim, considering the direction or course of the lode at the surface. As the law stands, we think that the right to follow the dip of the vein is bounded by the

end lines of the claim, properly so called; which lines are those which are crosswise of the general course of the vein on the surface." 1

§ 827. Same subject-Side lines becoming end lines Angle of crossing immaterial - The Amy case. The law as declared in the last preceding section has been followed without deviation by all the courts since it was announced. It matters not at what angle the vein crosses these parallel lines, the result is the same. It is sufficient that it crosses them, and the angle is quite immaterial.

3

Judge Hawley attempted to argue away the force of this decision in one case by laying down the dictum that where a vein more nearly conformed to the side than its end lines in its strike and course through the claim, those lines should still remain side lines, and that end lines, or new ones parallel therewith, should be made. And while there might be a case, as we shall see hereafter, where the apex of a vein appears to begin and end wholly within a claim, its continuation in either direction being incapable of absolute demonstration, owing to the shattering of the country by a fault, or by erosion, or from any other cause, which is clearly shown, where such a rule ought to be applied, it is quite manifest that the ordinary case of the vein crossing both side lines of the claim, thus constituting them end lines, presents no such question.

Miners must mark their locations correctly or suffer the

1 Flagstaff M. Co. v. Tarbet, 98 U. S. 463. See also Argentine M. Co. v. Terrible M. Co., 122 U. S. 478; Empire M. & M. Co. v. Tombstone M. & M. Co., 100 Fed. Rep. 910; King v. Amy & Silversmith M. Co., 152 U. S. 222; Last Chance M. Co. v. Tyler M. Co., 167 U. S. 684; Cons. Wyoming G. M. Co. v. Champion M. Co. (C. C.), 63 Fed. Rep. 540; New Dunderberg M. Co.

v. Old, 79 Fed. Rep. 598; Cosmopolitan M. Co. v. Foote, 101 Fed. Rep. 518; Tombstone M. Co. v. Way Up M. Co. (Ariz.), 25 Pac. Rep. 794; Parrott S. & C. Co. v. Heinze (Mont.), 64 Pac. Rep. 326.

2 Cons. Wyoming G. M. Co. v. Champion M. Co., 63 Fed. Rep. 540, 549.

3 Post, this chapter, article C.