The Canadian government appears to leave the framing of mining laws to the several provincial governments. Ontario and Quebec have very good and simple laws relative to mining claims. In some respects the laws of the two provinces are similar. For example, in each province a claim must be laid out as a subdivision of the usual public survey and is normally 40 acres in extent. Again, no prospecting or locating may be done except by persons holding so-called miners' licenses or miners' certificates, which cost $5 to $10 per year. No extra-lateral rights are recognized.

In Ontario, a patent may be applied for any time within 3-1/2 years of the date of certificate of record, and the land is purchased outright by the payment of $3 per acre. The patent thus obtained conveys no rights to timber or water on the property. In Quebec, patents are never issued and mining claims are held by a sort of lease, as it were. A license to hold a mining claim costs a flat fee of $10, plus an extra fee of one dollar per acre. At times, arrangements are made for holding and working mining property upon a 3 per cent royalty basis.

The Mexican laws permit the location of any number of claims by individuals. A locator is required to employ an expert (perito) to make a careful survey of his claims (pertinencias), which are taken up in rectangular form. Measurements are according to the metric system, and the unit of area is the hectara, which is the area of a square with 100-meter (328-feet) sides, and is equivalent to 2.471 acres. The government's sale price for mineral ground is 5 pesos (about $2.50) per hectare, or approximately one dollar, United States money, per acre. The unit size of a claim is a hectare, and it thus comes about that the words pertinencia and hectara are used somewhat synonymously.

Under United States laws, the owner of agricultural land, if he has not committed perjury in perfecting his title, will hold all minerals which may be disclosed subsequently to the granting of his deed. The proof of false representations will rescind any such patent and the ground will revert to the Government and be again open to location.

In the surveying and laying off of mineral claims for patent purposes, the United States laws require the claimant to put the work into the hands of a mineral surveyor. Such a surveyor may usually be engaged in any mining district and he will hold a commission from the Department of the Interior authorizing him to do this sort of work. He will have passed certain examinations as to his capabilities and he will have filed bonds in the sum of $5,000 for the faithful performance of his duties to both the Government and his client. He receives no compensation from the Government, and each claimant may make such terms with him as are equitable. He must hold no interest, directly or otherwise, in the property he surveys, nor is he permitted to file upon any mineral land. If he undertakes a case for a client his duties require him to survey the boundaries of every other mineral claim which may be contiguous to, or conflicting with, the one in question, and his maps must accurately show all such claims. His notes will contain sufficient data to accurately convey the exact location, the chief topographical features, the conflicts with all other locations, the position, and description of all mining improvements, and many other details which will be required in the final purchase of the land from the Government. The surveyor's fee will vary from $50 to possibly $200 for a single claim, much depending upon the nature of the survey, whether simple or difficult, and upon local financial conditions and competition.

After the filing of the mineral surveyor's notes and plats with the Surveyor-General, critical examination of the documents is made, and if they are found to conform with all requirements, the case is "approved" and it may then pass to the local land office of the district. Next begins a publication period of sixty days, during which opportunity is offered the public to enter objections to the issuance of a patent, either for reasons of conflict or because of fraud. If no such adverse proceedings are instituted, the patent will follow, in due time.

The ultimate expense of securing a patent to a claim of, say, the maximum area will not be less than $225, and it may run as high as $300 if in a region difficult to survey or if there are a good many conflicting surveys.

A mineral surveyor is prohibited from acting as attorney for the claimant in presenting his claims before the Land Office, so an attorney's fee must be added to the above rough estimates. As a matter of fact, although the surveyor does not nominally appear as the attorney, in many a case it is he who makes out all of the documents to be then signed by an attorney in fact. The laws are faulty in this respect. The lawyer recognizes this fact and he asks the surveyor to make out the many legal forms; for who is so fully cognizant of the property and the desires of the claimant as the surveyor who has become intimately acquainted with the premises, its workings, its desirable features and everything concerned with the adjustment of conflicts? It is to be expected that he could best protect the claimant's interests, and it is wrong to retire him at this very critical time prescribed by a foolish law. The fee of an additional man in the case is an unjust burden upon the client. Land Office officials have recognized this fact. They know that the best documents reaching their offices are those prepared by mineral surveyors.

[VII
PLACERING.]

Different writers hold the following slightly different definitions of a placer: One says, "a placer is a surface accumulation of minerals in the wash of streams and seas," while another writes that a placer is "a place where surface depositions are washed for valuable minerals, such as gold, tin, tungsten, gems, etc." One definition conveys no notion of the operations of mining, but is merely geological, while the other involves the thought of the recovery of values.