The mining rules of the highest authority are those found in the United States Statutes. The present system of Federal laws governing mines and mining are contained in the Act of July 4, 1866, with the acts supplementary and amendatory thereto.1 The Federal Statutes on the subject do not, and do not pretend to cover the whole field of mining law. The adoption of mining rules by the miners of each mining district is expressly authorized, and the passage of mining laws by State and Territorial governments is impliedly recognized by the following provision in the Federal Statutes: "The miners of each mining district may make regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or with the laws of the State or Territory in which the district is situated, governing the location, manner of recording, amount of work necessary to hold possession of a mining-claim, subject to the following requirements: The location must be distinctly marked on the ground so that its boundaries can be readily traced. All records of mining-claims hereafter made shall contain the name or names of the locators, the date of the location, and such a description of the claim or claims located by reference to some natural object or permanent monument as will identify the claim. 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 tenth day of June, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, 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 re-location 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. Upon the failure of any one of several co-owners to contribute his proportion of the expenditures required hereby, the co-owners who have performed the labor or made the improvements may, at the expiration of the year, give such delinquent co-owner personal notice in writing or notice by publication in the newspaper published nearest his claim, for at least once a week for ninety days, and if at the expiration of ninety days after such notice in writing, or by publication, such delinquent should fail or refuse to contribute his proportion of the expenditure required by this section, his interest in the claim shall become the property of his co-owners who have made the required expenditures. 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."

1 U. S. Rev. Stat., Sec. 2318, et seq.

The various provisions of the Federal Statutes relative to mining law will be discussed in their appropriate places, in the remaining chapters of this subject.