LANDS MINERAL. 53 



MINING LAWS. 



Basic provisions of the mining laws. 



Sec. 2318. In all cases lands valuable for minerals shall be reserved 

 from sale, except as otherwise expressly directed by law. 



Mineral lands open to purchase. 



Sec. 2319. All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the 

 United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to 

 be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which 

 they are found to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United 

 States and those who have declared their intention to become such, 

 under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local cus- 

 toms or rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the 

 same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United 

 States. 



Size of lode claims. 



Sec. 2320. Mining claims upon veins or lodes of quartz or other 

 rocks in place bearing gold, silver, cinnibar, lead, tin, copper, or other 

 valuable deposits, heretofore located, shall be governed as to length 

 along the vein or lode by the customs, regulations, and laws in force at 

 the date of their location. A mining claim located after the tenth day 

 of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, whether located by one or 

 more persons, may equal, but shall not exceed, one thousand five hun- 

 dred feet in length along the vein or lode ; but no location of a mining 

 claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the 

 limits of the claim located. No claim shall extend more than three 

 hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, nor 

 shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation to less than 

 twenty-five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, 

 except where adverse rights existing on the tenth day of May, eight- 

 een hundred and seventy-two, render such limitation necessary. The 

 end lines of each claim shall be parallel to each other. 



Locators' rights. 



Sec. 2322. The locators of all mining locations heretofore made or 

 which shall hereafter be made, on any mineral vein, lode, or ledge, 

 situated on the public domain, their heirs and assigns, where no ad- 

 verse claim exists on the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and 

 seventy-two, so long as they comply with the laws of the United 

 States, and with State, Territorial, and local regulations not in con- 

 flict with the laws of the United States governing their possessory 

 title, shall have the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all 

 the surface included within the lines of their locations, and of all 

 veins, lodes, and ledges throughout their entire depth, the top or apex 

 of which lies inside of such surface lines extended downward verti- 

 cally, although such veins, lodes, or ledges may so far depart from a 

 perpendicular in their course downward as to extend outside the ver- 

 tical side lines of such surface locations. But their right of posses- 

 sion to such outside parts of such veins or ledges shall be confined to 

 such portions thereof as lie between vertical planes drawn downward 

 as above described, through the end lines of their locations, so contin- 

 ued in their own direction that such planes will intersect such exterior 



