64 LAWS APPLICABLE TO THE NATIONAL FORESTS. 



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. 10 L. D., 

 620.) 



A deposit of brick clay is net 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 in- 

 valid for lack of discovery, can not be perfected after its transfer 

 to a single individual by a subsequent discovery. (H. H. Yard et al., 



38 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 

 character 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 & Kenn- 

 ing Co.. 39 L. D.. 299.) 



Location and boundaries — Conflicts — Errors of description. 



The position of conflicting mining claims and their positions with 

 relation to each other, must be determined as the claims are defined 

 and established on the ground, and all errors of description must give 

 way thereto. (United States Mining Co. v. TTall. 39 L. D.. 516.) 



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 develop- 

 ment — that is, to facilitate the extraction of the metals — though in 

 fact such labor and improvements may be on ground which origi- 

 nally constituted only 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. 101 U. S.. 636. 

 655 : Copper Glance Lode. 29 L. D.. 512.) 



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 min- 

 eral from the land, or forward or facilitate the development of the 

 claim as a mine or mining 1 claim, or be necessary for its care or the 



