The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 25, 1897, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 25, 1897. 3 MINING LAWS OF THE KLONDYKE. f Useful Information for Prospective Travelers in the Yukon Gold Fields—How to Locate and Hold Claims. Below will be found a comprehensive digest of the Canadian laws particularly pertinent to mining in the Klondyke country. Mining operations in that region are not, as Is popularl v supposed, subject to the regulations of the province of British Columbia, but to the general laws of the Dominion. On the American side, in Alaska, mining operations are subject only to United States mining laws and the general laws of the State of Oregon as they existed in 1384 when the law providing a civil government for Alaska was passed. This law provided “that the general laws of the State of Oregon now in force are hereby declared to be the law in said district, so tar as the same be applicable and not in conflict with the provisions of this act or the laws of the United States”; hence the laws Oregon in force May 17, 1884, are the laws of Alaska. On the wild frontiers of Alaska, howaver, little attention has ever been paid to the literal provisions of laws of any kind, and mining has been carried on in a mitive and independent manner. PLACER MINING. Nature and Size of Claims. For “Bar Diggings"—A strip of land 100 fest wide at high-water mark and thence extending into the river at its lowast water level. For “Dry Diggings”’—One hundred feet square. For ““Creek and River Clayms’—Five hundred feet along the direction of the stream, extending in width from base to base of the hill or bench on either side. The width of such claims, however, is limited to 600 feet when the benches are a greater distance apart than that. In such a case claims are laid out in areas of ten acres with boundaries running north and south, east and west. For *‘Bench Claims”—One hundred feet square. Size of claims to discoverers or parties of discoverers: To one discoverer, 300 feet in lengtn; 1o & party of two, 600 feet in length; to a party of three, 800 feet in length; to a party of four, 1000 feet in length; toa party of more than four, ordinary sized claim only. New strata of auriferous gravel in a locality where claims are abandoned, or ( gings discovered in the vicinity of bar diggings, or vice versa, shall be com 8 aew mines. Rights and Duties of Miners. { Entries of grants for placer mining must be renewed and entry fee paia every year. No miner shall receive more than one claim in the zame locality, but may hold any number ot claims by purchase, and any number of miners maz unite to work their claims in common, provided an agreement be duly registered and a registra- tion fee of $5 be duly paid therefor. Claims may © tgaged or dizposed of provided such disposal be registered and a registration fee of $2 be paid therefor. Alth rs shall bave exclusive right of entry upon their :Il‘ms tor the “min ing of them, holders of adjacent claims shall be granted such right of entry on as may seem reasonable to the superintendent of mines. Each miner shali be entitled to so much of the water not previously sppropri- ated flowing th gh or past bis claim as the superintendent of mines shall deem. it, and shall be enti tled to dsain his own claim free of charge. ing unworked on working days for seventy-two hours are , unless sickness or other reasonable cause is shown or unless nt on leave. For venience of miners on back claims, on benches or siopes, permission may be granted by the superintendent of mines to tunnel through claims fronting necessary 10 Wor es. e death of a miner the provisions of abandonment do not apply during his last illness or after his decease. Acquisition of Mining Locations. M 7 0f ations— W ooden posts, four inches square, driven eighteen inches ound and projecting eighteen inches above it, must mark the four a location. In rocky ground, stone mounds three feet in diameter may ut the post. In timbered land, well-blazed lines must join the posts. In rolling or uneven localities, flattened posts must be placed at intervals along nes to mark them, so that subsequent explorers shall have no trouble in lines. locations are bounded by lines rurning north and south, east and west, the stake at the northeast corner shall be marked by a cutting instrument or by co’ored ‘ L. No. 1” (mining location, stake number 1). Likewise the southeasterly stake shall be marked **M.L. No. 2,”” the southwesterly ‘‘M.L. No. 3" ‘ and the northwesterly “M.L. No.4.”” Where the boundary lines do not run nerth i south, east and west, the northerly stake shall be marked 1, the easterly 2, and the westerly 4. On each post shall be marked also the itials and the distance to the next post. he southerly claima wtion and Afidavit of Discoverer—Within sixty days after marking his the claimant shall file in the office of the Dominion Land Office for the t a formal declaration, sworn to beiore the land agent, describing as nearly be the locality and dimensions of the location. Witk such declaration he locat dis asm must pay the agent an entry fee of $5. Receipt [ssued to Discoverer—Upon such payment theazent shall grant a receipt or ¢ the claimant, or his legul representative, to enter into possession, :ct to renewal every year, for five vears, provided thatin these five years $100 shall be expended on the claim 1n actual mining operations. A detailed state- ment of such expenditure must also be filed with the agent of Dominion lands, in the form of a davit corroborated by two reliable and disinterested witnessgs. 1l of Location Certificate—Upon payment of the $5 fee therefor, a sued entitling the claimant to hold thelocation for another vear. ‘orking in Partnership—Any party of four or less neizhboring miners, within three months after entering, may, upon being authorized by the agent, make upon any one of such locations, during the first and second years but not subse- quently, the expenditure otherwise required on each of the locations. An agree- ment, however, accompanied by a fee of $5, must be filed with the agent. Pro- vided, however, that the exvenditure made upon any one location shall not be ap- plicable in any manner or for any purpose to any other location. Purchase of Location—At any time before the expiration of five years from aate mant may purchase a location upon filing with the agent proof that of entry a ci Decision of Disputes. be has expended $500 in actual mining operations on the claim and complied with all other prescribed regulations. The price of a mining location shall be §5 per acre, cash, On making an application to purchase the claimant must deposit with the agent $50, to be deemed as payment to the Government for the survey of his loca- tion. On receipt of plans and field notes and approval by the Surveyor-General a patent shall issue to the claimant. Reversion of Title—Failure of a claimant to prove within each year the ex- penditure prescribed, or failure to pay the agent the full cash price, shall cause the claimant’s right to lapse and the location to revert to the crown, along with the improvements upon it. Rival Claimants—W hen two or more persons claim the same location the right to acquire it shall be in him who can prove he was the first to discover the min- eral deposit involved, and to take possession in the prescribed manner, Priority of discovery alone, however, shall not give the.right to acquire. A subsequent aiscoverer, who has complied with other prescribed conditions, shall take pre- cedence over a prior discoverer who has failed so te comply. When a claimant has, in bad faitb, used the prior discovery of another and has fraudulently affirmed that he made independent discovery and demarcation, he shall, apart from other legal consequences, have no claim, forfeit his deposit and be absolutely debarred from obtaining another location. Rival Applicants—Where there are two or more applicants for a mining loca- tion, neither of whom is the originai discoverer, the Minister of the Interior may invite competitive tenders or put it up for public auction, as he sees fit. Transfer of Mining Rights. Assignment of Right to Purchase—An assignment of the right to purchasea location shall be indorsed on the back of the receipt or certificate of assignment, and execution thereof witnessed by two disinterested witnesses. Upon the de- posit of such receipt in the office of the land sgent, accompanied by a registration fee of $2, the agent shall give the assignee a certificate eatitling him to all the rights of tha original discoverer. By complying with the prescribed regulations such assignee becomes entitled to purchase the location. QUARTZ MINING. Regulations in respect to placer mining, so far as they relate to entries, entry fees, assignments, marking of locations, sgents’ receipts, etc., except where other- wise provided, apply also to quartz mining. Nature and Size of Claims. A location shall not exceed the following dimensions: Length 1500 feet, breadth £00 feet. The surface boundaries shall be from straight parallel lines and its boundaries beneath the surfase the planes of these lines. Limit to Number of Locations. Not more than one mining location shall be granted to any one individual claimant upon the same lode or vein. Mill Sites. Land used for milling purposes may be applied for and patented, either in connection with or separate from a mining location, and may be held in addition to amining location, provided such additional land shall in no case exceea five acres. i GENERAL PROVISIONS. The Superintendent of Mines shall have power to hear and determine all dis- putes in regard to mining property arising within his district, subject to appeal by either of the parties to the Commissioner of Dominion Lanas. Leave of Absencs. Each holder of a mining location shall be entitled to be absent and suspend work on his diggings during the ‘‘close’” season, which ‘‘close” season shall be declared by the agent in each district, under instructions from the Minister of the Interior. The agent may grant a leave of absence pending the decision of any dispute before him. Any miner i3 entitied to a year's leave of absence upon proving expenditure of not less than $200 without any reasonable return of gold. Thne time occupied by a locator in going to and returning from the office of the agent or of the superintendent of mines shall not count against him. Additional Locations. The Minister of the Interior may grant to a person actually developing a location an adjoining location equal i size, provided it be shown to the Minis- ter’s satisfaction that the vein being worked will probably extend beyond the boundaries of the original location. Forfeiture. In event of the breach of the regulationy, a right or grant shall be absolutely forfeited, and the offending party shall be incapable of subsequently acquiring gimilar richts, except by special permis sion by the Minister ot the Interior. ested in the syndicate which Mr. Rank is to represent. . Lane, the well-known real-estate is convinced that there is any | shield of wood. t of money in the venture. He to take a party mnorth with and for tuis purpose he is looking steamer that he can charter and run | against the face of the drift. ransportation business. on as I can crganize a , *and [ am certain | and becomes a charcoal-burning. are thickly set slantwise over them. As | the fire burns gravel falls down from above and gradually covers the slanting The fire smo!ders away It is | when it reaches thisconfined stage auring the night that its heat is most effective | Next day | the miner finds tne face of his drift thawed out for a distance of from ten to eighteen inches, according to conditions. He shovels out the dirt and if only a part is pay dirt he puts only that on his dump. | Thus, at the rate ot a few inchesa aay, the drifting out of the precious gravel goes on with the long winter. ers show thata hitherto unnoticed pe- culiarity exists. While much of the gravel just above bedrock is wenderfully rich, the bedrock itself is the richest de- pository. The bedrock appears to be everywhere cracked and broken up, theugh evidently yet *in place.” It is thus full of crevices and interstices filled with a clayey gravel, and it is these crevices which yield most richly. *Crev- icing’’ is familiar to all placer miners, but this 1s something strange. There is here a phenomenal multiplication of crevices in bedrock, and they are described as often The descriptions by the returned min- . od money in it. I have been ing for a steamer and as soon as I d one it will be filled in a few nours. ereisan enormous demand for pass- to the north, and everybody seems e enough monev to pay a fancy o make the trip*” Y fes of Emeryville, who is now amp with the Fifth Regiment at a Cruz, has been intending to reiurn | aska soon. The strike at Dawson ten his ret O yke. He will o up with a party of six, to start on Thursday, and was in San Francisco to-day purchasing | supplies: He will go up to the Sound by rail, thence to Juneau by vessel, and take the overland reute to the Yukon. - MINING ETHODS. How They Get the Kiondyke Gold in Midwinter. The mining methods of the Klondyke are very strange and are adapted to peculiar conditions. There the pay gravel happens to lie several feet below the mucky beds of the creeks and must be mined out. At nearly ail theother Yukon placers ranged along the river for 300 miles the gold is in surfacegravel. In thesedig- gings little or nothing can be done except from about June 15 to September 1, when the waler runs, On the Klondyke the running water prevents mining out the gravel under the creek beds, and so it is all taken out dui- ing the months when everything is frczen solid, and when the icy chains break in the short summer the gravel that has been mined is quickly sluiced and the gold ed up. Prospecting consists of sink- a shaft to bedrock by the creek by ernately thawing the ground with fires ("d dicging itout. When the bottom is ached tne prospector knows more than he did before. Ifapan ef bottom gravel washed out with water from meited ice 8hows up rich the claim is worked by tun- neling in, In doing this dry wood 1s piled against the face of the driit and then other pieces Uncle Sam is going to send a lot of reindeer into the Yukon country, to see if they would help the miners out, and as likely as not the Yukoners will be skipping about the Arctic circle making calls and bauling gold dust and provisions by the picturesque and speedy method here depicted. There seems to be no reason why the reindeer goult: not be as great a blessing in the Yukon region as in Lapland and Eastern iberia. The news of this enterprising experiment comes from Juneau in connection with the reports of Dr. Sheldon Jackson's doings. famous througk his many years of labor in Alaska, has been appointed United States Commissioner of Education for Alaska, and has also been appointed a special agent to investizate the agricultural possibilities of the Yukon Valley and the interior of Alaska generally. He bas just gone into the interior. Before going he secured mate- rial for sledges to take along and arrangea to have thirty or forty reindeer sent from the reindeer stations on the upper coast of the Yukon River. broken to harne-s, and this winter the experiment of what they would do for the civ- ilization of the mining region will be tried. When he returns from the Yukon ke will visit the reinder stations in the revenue cutter Bear, and will later make another trip to Siberia for more reindeer at Government expsnse. It was Sheldon Jackson who conceived the idea of populating Alaska with rein- deer for the benefit of the natives, to whom the animals will be food, clothing, trans- portation and wealth when they multiply sufficiently and the natives learn their use and value. Three or four quite large herds have been brought from the Siberian coust and are now carelully bred and cared fer by native Laplanders at three stations. extending downward several feet. No specimens of the rock appear to have been brought down, and there is no re- liable ideutification of the rock. This bedrock 1s so greatly broken up in the way described that no blasting 1s neces- <ary. Itis easily removed with picks and it is simply thrown on the aumps, to be sluiced as the gravel is. Tke gold.so concentrated in the crevices sticks to the clinging gravel acd clay, and isin the residue, which is shoveled out, 00, of course. No one has given the slightest descrip- tion of the fieldsas a mining engineer would like to hear it. Inquiry as to whether any *‘mining expert” nad been heard of in the Yukon elicited the reply: “Yes; there is a fellow up there who pretends to know a lot, I believe, That’s ‘Swift-Water Bill.” Tdon’t know nis other name.”’ PERILS AWAIT THEM. Dr. Kleru'ff of Berkaley Says That Klondyks Go!d-Seekers Have Much to Contend With, BERKELEY, Car, July 24.—Dr. H. N. Kierulff ot Berkeley, who claims to be thoroughly familiar with the Klondyke region, having spent two years in Alaska as surgeon of the United States Alaskan Boundary Commission, advises no one to go there unless he has plenty of «uitable clothing and provisions as well as $500 or 80 in cash upon arrival. In addi- tion he says that it would be the height of folly for a man to attempt the trip unless in round health and in every way able to withstand the rigor of an Arctic winter. Those who disrezard these warnings, he declares, will surely come to grief. ——— Rank Is Going. ALAMEDA, CaAL, July 24.—The latest man to fall a victim to the prevailing Klondyke epidemic is W. M. Rank, presi- dent of the electric railway. It is said that a syndicate of capitalists has been formed which has engaged Mr. Rank to zo to the Klondyke as their representa- tive and engage in the mining business, Many others here are catching the fever, and only lack of mean; prevents a large number of young men from starting for the diggings, Sheldon Jackson, who has become Those sent will be TO-DAY—CLOTH'NG. ny o SHOVEL ROUTE! 10,000,000, CI0C,00000,010000 0,00 CIOC0.0C.0.0C Finding ourselves burdened with an alarming surplus of the highest grades of Suits and Overcoats, and while the same are ad- vancing in value under the Dingley tariff act, the present surplus is burdensome to us in more ways than one. We must relieve ourselves. If it were in the lower drades we would not care, but it’s our finest grades, and our finest grades must do out. We use the shovels for that purpose. It is the speediest and quickest route. We give youw the undivided and unrestricted pick from suwits and overcoats that have sold up to $20, not any of ’em less than $18, filled our corner window with ’em, and bedin Monday morning to shovel 3 ’em out at We're Shoveling Out the Finest! WE “ ARE: st R slasjaciaeirerchrersanhrete HOVELIN What @figge&fiichTreat for Lovers ofFineClothes The suits embrace the very richest and han dsomest lot of real hidh-class darments that have ever been seen in San Francisco. There is no style abso- lutely correct and fashionable that is absent in this offer. The Overcoats are a pretty lot. We're King Pins for Overcoats—known the | coast over as headquarters for overcoats- Then thinlk of owr Pretty Tan Covert ‘ Cloth Overcoats, those with the silk sleeve lining ; those pretty worsted overcoats in many colorinds—those beawtiful Kerseys in blues and blacks and Oxford mix- The Prince Albert is here, the cut-|tures. All these high-class darments, all away is here in many different lengths|these clever examples of high-art tailor- and styles, the single-breasted sack is|ing will be shoveled owt, beginning Mon- represented, the double-breasted sack is|day at also in this agdredation. T YT S TS U U B OB U BB OB U SU BB S BEEE BB TT TSSO U BB OBB S SBUBBBBEIIED Such a charming lot of swits has never before been assembled under one 7 oof. We have not gone about our work in a hesitating fashion, but we say that these are all $18 and $20 values, and were it not for the surplus ws would never dream of offering them to yow at the price. Monday we bedin shoveling ’env out | at Those that appreciate fine tailoring, | those that know what a hish-class dar- o ment should be, those that appreciate ° the ownind of high-class clothing at 2 '2 next-to-nothing prices, will douwbly ap- preciate the work that the shovels are doing for them. OS[BS S 9,11, 18 and 15 Kearny Street. TWO ENTIRE BUILDINGS 8 FLOO