56 LAWS APPLICABLE TO THE NATIONAL FORESTS, 



quired to be made in this section by the claimant for such patent may 

 be made by his, her, or its authorized agent, where said agent is 

 conversant with the facts sought to be established by said affidavits. 

 Amendment of Jan. 22, 1880, 21 Stat.. 61.] 



Description of claim in patent. 



Sec. 232T. The description of vein or lode claims upon surveyed 

 lands shall designate the location of the claims with reference to the 

 lines of the public survey, but need not conform therewith ; but where 

 patents have been or shall be issued for claims upon unsurveyed 

 lands, the surveyors general, in extending the public survey, shall 

 adjust the same to the boundaries of said patented claims so as in 

 no case to interfere with or change the true location of such claims 

 as they are officially established upon the ground. Where patents 

 have issued for mineral lands, those lands only shall be segregated 

 and shall be deemed to be patented which are bounded by the lines 

 actually marked, denned, and established upon the ground by the 

 monuments of the official survey upon which the patent grant is 

 based, and surveyors general in executing subsequent patent surveys, 

 whether upon surveyed or unsurveyed lands, shall be governed ac- 

 cordingly. The said monuments shall at all times constitute the 

 highest authority as to what land is patented, and in case of any 

 conflict between the said monuments of such patented claims and the 

 descriptions of said claims in the patents issued therefor the monu- 

 ments on the ground shall govern, and erroneous or inconsistent de- 

 scriptions or calls in the patent descriptions shall give way thereto. 

 (As amended April 28. 1901: 33 Stat. 515.) 



Placer claims. 



Sec. 2329. Claims usually called ;; placers." including all forms of 

 deposit, excepting veins of quartz, or other rock in place, shall be 

 subject to entry and patent, under like circumstances and conditions, 

 and upon similar proceedings, as are provided for vein or lode claims : 

 but where the lands have been previously surveyed by the United 

 States, the entry in its exterior limits shall conform to the legal sub- 

 divisions of the public lands. 



Size of placer claim. 



Sec 2330. Legal subdivisions of forty acres may be subdivided 

 into ten-acre tracts ; and two or more persons, or associations of per- 

 sons, having contiguous claims of any size, although such claims 

 may be less than ten acres each, may make joint entry thereof: but 

 no location of a placer claim, made after the ninth day of July, 

 eighteen hundred and seventy, shall exceed one hundred and sixty 

 acres for any one person or association of persons, which location 

 shall conform to the United States surveys : and nothing in this sec- 

 tion contained shall defeat or impair any bona fide preemption or 

 homestead claim upon agricultural lands, or authorize the sale of the 

 improvements of any bona fide settler to any purchaser. 



Conformity to surveys. 



Sec 2331. Where placer claims are upon surveyed lands, and con- 

 form to legal subdivisions, no further survey or plat shall be required. 

 and all placer-mining claims located after the tenth day of May. 



