The provisions of the Federal Statutes as to the requirements for the performance of annual labor on each claim are as follows:

* * * "On each claim located after the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than one hundred dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year. On all claims located prior to the tenth day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, ten dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made by the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, and each year thereafter, for each one hundred feet in length along the vein until a patent has been issued therefor; but where such claims are held in common, such expenditure may be made upon any one claim; and upon a failure to comply with these conditions, the claim or mine upon which such failure occurred shall be open to relocation in the same manner as if no location of the same had ever been made, provided that the original locators, their heirs, assigns, or legal representatives, have not resumed work upon the claim after failure and before such location. * * * Sec. 5 A. C, May 10, 1872.

1 Merritt vs. Judd, 6 M. R., 62; 14 Col., 59; Mallett vs. Uncle Sam Co., 1 M. R., 18; 1 Nev., 188.

2 Trevaskis vs. Peard, 44 P., 246.

3 Beaver Co. vs. St. Vrain Co., 6

Colo. App., 130. 4 McGinnis vs. Egbert, 8 Colo, 41;

15 M. R., 329.

"Sec. 2. That section twenty-three hundred and twenty-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States, be amended by adding the following words: 'Provided, That the period within which the work required to be done annually on all unpatented mineral claims shall commence on the first day of January succeeding the date of location of such claim, and this section shall apply to all claims located since the tenth day of May, anno Domini, eighteen hundred and seventy-two. Jan. 22, 1880.' "

Any work done for the purpose of discovering minerals is improvements within the spirit of the statute.5 Road building is counted as annual labor.6 Flumes, drains, or the turning of a stream or the sinking of a common shaft will count.7 Work done by any party in privity of title with the owners,8 and even work gratuitously contributed will count.9

5 U. S. vs. Iron Silver Co., 24 F., 568. 6 Doherty vs. Morris, 289, 85. 7 St. Louis Co. vs. Kemp., 104 U.

S., 636; 11 M. R., 692.

8 Godfrey vs. Faust, 101 N. W., 118. 9 Anderson vs. Caughey, 84 P., 223.

Work done beyond the lines will count when it has direct reference to the drainage or development of the claim.10 Whether the work done on one is really for the benefit of the group is for the jury to say.11 Where sundry claims are worked together as one group, the development work though confined to a single claim may count for all.12

A house for the use of the miners built 200 feet away from the claim cannot be considered as annual labor.13

The expense of taking timbers, lumber, bucket, rope and tools to the mine - all carried away after slight use, if used at all - will not avail for annual labor.14

Taking specimens for assays will not count for annual labor nor as a legitimate resumption of work.15 The cost of sharpening tools may or may not be a legitimate item, according to circumstances.16 17