9 Colo. 538 | Colo. | 1886
The certificate of location of the Portland lode was admitted in evidence on the trial in the court below, over the objection of the plaintiffs that it did not comply with the requirements of section 2324 of the Be-vised Statutes of the United States, in that it did not contain such a description of the claim located, by reference to some “.natural object or permanent monument,” as would identify it. Section 2399, Gen. St. 722, provides that the discoverer of the lode shall record his claim in the office of the recorder of. the county, and section 2400 requires that the certificate of location thus recorded shall contain, among other things, such a description as shall identify the claim with reasonable certainty. In this respect the requirement of the federal and state law may be said to be substantially the same. That degree of certainty with which the final survey for a patent fixes the locus and boundaries of the subject-matter of the grant is not required in the original location to be made by the discoverer of the lode, nor would it be practicable without the aid óf a professional surveyor. While this is true, fixing the locus of the ground sought to be appropriated, in the first instance, with reasonable certainty, by reference to natural or artificial monuménts, is practicable, and is of the first importance to prevent
The intention of the provision is to give one seeking the locus of a recorded claim something in the nature of. an initial point from which to start, and, following the coui-se or distance given, find with reasonable certainty the claim located. The identification must be by reference to some natural object or permanent monument. Stone monuments, blazed trees, the confluence of streams, the point of intersection of well-known gulches, ravines or roads, prominent buttes, hills, mining shafts, etc., are enumerated as satisfying the requirements of the law. The permanent monuments of a neighboring mining claim are also regarded as sufficient. Wade, Min. Law, 113; Quimby v. Boyd, 8 Colo. 200; 6 Pac. Rep. 462; Gilpin Co. Min. Co. v. Drake, 8 Colo. 590; 9 Pac. Rep. 787; North Noon Day M. Co. v. Orient M. Co. 6 Sawy. 300; 1 Fed. Rep. 522; Jupiter Min. Co. v. Bodie Con. M. Co. 7 Sawy. 96; 11 Fed. Rep. 666.
In the certificate before us we do not find any such reference to either a natural object or a permanent monument as meets the substantial requirements of the statute. Describing the lode as being on the southwest side of Mount Hardin, and in Portland gulch, locates the lode generally. It is not, however, that definite location, by ref
In this view, the court below erred in admitting the certificate of location of the Portland lode in evidence, and its judgment must be reversed. The judgment of the court below is reversed and the case remanded.
Reversed.