Gold

Prospectors and miners should be reminded that the Congress of the United State has charged the Secretary of Agriculture (and Secretary of the Interior) with the responsibility for administering certain laws it has passed with regard to the use of the surface the National Forest System lands. To comply, the Secretary of Agriculture authorized the Forest Service to formulate and enforce new rules and regulations relating to the preservation and use of the surface Forest Service lands.

With the passage of the private ownership of gold Act, quoted above, gold became a commodity in the same sense that copper, silver, platinum, wheat, corn, lumber, cotton, or any other product bought, sold, and used in domestic and international trade is a commodity. Upon the passage of the Act, the major commodity markets or exchanges of the nation offered to buy or sell gold futures contracts. There is no restriction on the purchase or sale of gold-it may be sold to anyone who wishes to buy.

During the period of economic stress and depression of the early 1930´s the GOLD RESERVE ACT OF 1934 was passed by the Congress. This Act arbitrarily required all persons in the United States to exchange their privately owned gold and bullion for so-called lawful (paper) money. By this Act it became illegal for a citizen of the United State to own gold coin or bullion.

The hard rock miner can be “in business” on practically any scale, from small to large, although in general rock mining requires more original investment and more Knowledge of mining than is required of the placer miner. It is safe to say that the ore from every mine has its own individual characteristics and requires a method of handling and processing specifically related to those characteristics. To go any further into methods of handling or processing ore is beyond the scope of this book.

The rights of the owner of mineral claim are limited to possession for the purpose of developing and extracting discovered valuable minerals. To obtain the additional rights included in full ownership, a patent must be obtained. This can be quite expensive, as there are many legal requirements that must be satisfied before a patent can be issued. Among these requirements are:

1.    Proving a valuable discovery.
2.    Survey by cadastral engineer.
3.    File a plat of claim.

Placer claims are limited in size to 20 acres per claim per locator. An association of two or more persons, up to a total of eight, may locate 20 acres per locator, making a total or maximum of 160 acres. Where practicable, placer claims are located by legal subdivision. A legal subdivision is a section or a part of a section lying in a designated township, range, and principal meridian, for instance, S1/2SE1/4sec. 14, T6N, R9E, MPR. On unsurveyed land or where not practical because of the terrain, placer claims may be located by metes and bounds.

Neither the Federal nor the state laws require that mining claim location descriptions be established by an official surveyor. However, if you find that you have valuable minerals and start to mine or prepare your claims for sale, it is wise policy to have a survey made by a licensed surveyor and to have this more accurate description recorded in the country Clerk and Recorder´s office.

A description prepare by a qualified surveyor of your claim would read like this:

For the purpose of preparing a description to identify the location of your claim on the location notice, you can estimate the approximate direction from your reference point on the corner of steel bridge as simply “Southwest.” By stepping off the distance you find it is 625 steps of three feet each, giving 1875 feet to the nearest corner “B.” now, you can state the location of your claim on the location notice as follows:

Metes are measures of length in feet and bounds are boundaries. A metes and bounds description locates the land area with reference to permanent objects or readily distinguished landmarks in the vicinity of the land area to be described.

Following is a description of how the various points on the diagram are determined:

1.- The line XY is determined by the point of discovery ”D” and  the course or direction of the vein.

Federal law requires that a claim be marked distinctly enough so that it can be readily identified. Each state has expanded this general requirement to include detailed directions for marking claim boundaries. The minimum requirements are listed as follows:

1.- Set a stake at the point of discovery and one on each corner of the claim. A center stake may be required on each side. Some states require the name of the claim to be painted on each stake, with a designation on each stake regarding center, or direction; i.e., Northwest corner, Southwest corner, Center etc.