What Constitutes a Deposit.
The word “deposit” has always been construed by the Land Office to be a general term, embracing veins, lodes, ledges, placers, and all other forms in which the valuable metals have ever been discovered. Whatever is recognized as a mineral by standard authorities, where the same is found in quality and quantity sufficient to render the land sought to be patented more valuable on this account than for purposes of agriculture, is treated by the Land Office as coming within the meaning of the act. Lands, therefore, valuable on account of borax, carbonate of soda, nitrate of soda, sulphur, alum, and asphalt, it is held may be patented. The first section of the Act of 1872 says, “all valuable mineral deposits.” The sixth section uses the term “valuable deposits.” Deposits of fire-clay may be patented under the act, and so may iron deposits, which may be patented as vein or placer claims. Lands, more valuable on account of deposits of limestone, marble, kaoline, and mica than for purposes of agriculture, may be patented as mineral lands.