Where a discovery has been made by a hole drilled on an angle, a bearing and distance will be given from the collar of the drill hole to the point where it intersects the orebody, the collar of the hole will in turn be tied to the section corner or location monument. The description of the hole will necessarily include the verticle angle and the slope distance. This does not apply to Wyoming where State law requires that the discovery be on the center line.
5–6 Placer Claims: Placer claims that do not conform to the legal subdivisions of the public land survey will require a patent survey. When such claims are on unsurveyed land they should be conformed as nearly as possible to the protracted survey.
If the claims consist of a gulch placer they must be contained within the required number of 40 acre tracts according to the number of locators.
Metes and bounds placers are also permissible where conflicts with other mining claims would result if a description by legal subdivisions was used. In such cases, the placer claim must be surveyed around existing claims, so that no conflict exists.
The field notes of a placer claim must also contain a descriptive report as called for in the Code of Federal Regulations, 3863.1–3(c). The information required in the descriptive report was omitted from the 1973 Manual of Surveying Instructions but was contained in the 1947 manual as follows:
“The mineral surveyor is required to make a full examination of all placer claims at the time of survey ... and to file with his field notes a descriptive report ... duly corroborated by one or more disinterested persons and covering the following items:
(a) The quality and composition of the soil, the kind and amount of timber and other vegetation;
(b) The location and size of streams, and such other matter as may appear upon the surface of the claims;
(c) The character, extent, and position of all surface and underground workings for mining purposes;
(d) The proximity of centers of trade or residence;