40 NATIONAL FOREST MANUAL LAWS. 



The act permitting entry under the placer mining laws of lands 

 chiefly valuable for building stone applies only to deposits of stone of 

 special or peculiar value for structural work, such as the erection of 

 houses, office buildings, and such other recognized commercial uses 

 as demand and will secure the profitable extraction and marketing of 

 the product. It does not apply to stone suitable only for building 

 foundations, fences, abutments, or other rough work and which is 

 widely distributed over large regions of territory. (Ex parte Stanislaus 

 Electric Power Co., decision of Secretary of the Interior, Sept. 4, 1912; 

 unpublished as yet.) 



A deposit of clay suitable for use in the manufacture of Portland 

 cement does not render the land containing it subject to disposition 

 under the placer mining laws. (Battancourt v. Fitzgerald, 40 L. D., 

 620.) 



A deposit of brick clay is not mineral within the meaning of the 

 mining laws. (King et al. v. Bradford, 31 L. D., 108.) 



Deposits of gravel and sand, suitable for mixing with cement for 

 concrete construction, but having no particular property or character- 

 istic giving them special value, and deriving their chief value from 

 proximity to a town, do not render the land in which they are found 

 mineral in character within the meaning of the mining laws, or bar 

 entry under the homestead laws, notwithstanding the land may be 

 more valuable on account of such deposits than for agricultural pur- 

 poses. (Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 L. D., 310.) 



A placer location of 160 acres made by eight persons, which is invalid 

 for lack of discovery, can not be perfected after its transfer to a single 

 individual by a subsequent discovery. (H. H. Yard et al., 3$ L. D., 

 59.) 



A single discovery of mineral sufficient to authorize the location of 

 a placer claim does not conclusively establish the mineral character 

 of all the land included in the claim, and the question as to the char- 

 acter of the land is open to investigation by the land department at 

 any time until patent issues. (American Smelting & Refining Co., 39 

 L. D., 299.) 



In determining the character of land embraced in a placer location, 

 10-acre tracts, normally in square form, are the units of investigation 

 and determination, and if any such area is found to be nonmineral it 

 should be eliminated from the claim. (American Smelting & Refining 

 Co., 39 L. D., 299.) 



Location and boundaries Conflicts Errors of description. The posi- 

 tion of conflicting mining claims and their positions with relation to 

 each other, must be determined as the claims are defined and estab- 

 lished on the ground, and all errors of description must give way 

 thereto. (United States Mining Co. v. Wall, 39 L. D., 546.) 



Improvements. Labor and improvements are deemed to have been 

 made upon a mining claim, whether it consists of one location 

 or several, when the labor is performed or the improvements are made 

 for its development that is, to facilitate the extraction of the metals 

 though in fact such labor and improvements may be on ground which 

 originally constituted qnly one of the locations, as in sinking a shaft, 

 or at a distance from the claim itself, as where the labor is performed 

 for the turning of a stream or the introduction of water, or where 

 the improvement consists in the construction of a flume to carry off 

 the debris or waste material. (Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S., 

 636, 655; Copper Glance Lode, 29 L. D. 542.) 



Labor or improvements to be credited toward meeting the require- 

 ments of the statute as to expenditures on a mining claim must actually 

 promote or directly tend to promote the extraction of mineral from the 

 land, or forward or facilitate the development of the claim as a mine 

 or mining claim, or be necessary for its care or the protection of the 

 mining works thereon or pertaining thereto. (Highland Marie and 

 Manilla Mining Claims, 31 L. D., 37.) 



An expenditure of $500 in labor or improvements to be available as a 

 basis for patent to a mining claim must have been made upon or for the 

 benefit of the location for which patent is sought; and the work per- 

 formed upon and for the benefit of a 20-acre placer location is not avail- 

 able as a patent expenditure for the benefit of a maximum location of 



