OIL FIELD DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS.

R. E. COLLOM, State Oil and Gas Supervisor.

From January 13, 1923, to and including February 10, 1923, the following new wells were reported as ready to drill:

Field

Long Beach

Long Beach
Long Beach
Santa Fe Springs
Santa Fe Springs

Santa Fe Springs
Santa Fe Springs
Santa Fe Springs

Santa Fe Springs

CO co co co to co co co co co to co co co co co co co co co co co co co co co co

11

Huntington Beach

SPECIAL ARTICLES.

Detailed technical reports on special subjects, the result of research work or extended field investigations, will continue to be issued as separate bulletins by the Bureau as has been the custom in the past.

Shorter and less elaborate technical papers and articles by members of the staff containing much information that will add to the permanent value of the Monthly Chapter are included in each number of 'Mining in California.'

It is anticipated that these special articles will cover a wide range of subjects both of historical and current interest; descriptions of new processes, or metallurgical and industrial plants, new mineral occurrences, and interesting geological formations, as well as articles intended to supply practical and timely information on the problems of the prospector and miner, such as the text of new laws and official regulations and notices affecting the mineral industry.

MINING LOCATION ON STOCK-RAISING LANDS. (Numerous inquiries have been received by the State Mining Bureau. regarding the rights of a mining claim locator on land taken up under the Act of Congress, entitled 'An act to provide for stock-raising homesteads, and for other purposes," commonly called the 640-acre homestead act; where such holdings conflict with mining claims or include mineral-bearing land.

At the request of the State Mineralogist, the following statement setting forth the rights of a mining locator on such lands was prepared by the United States Bureau of Mines, and may be taken as official.)

RIGHTS OF LOCATOR.

"The rights of a locator of a mining claim on grazing or stock-rais-
ing lands, is governed by section 9 of the Act of Congress, approved
December 29, 1916, entitled 'An act to provide for stock-raising home-
steads, and for other purposes.
(39 U. S. Stats., 862.)

The entries and patents issued under the act must contain a reservation to the United States of all coal and other minerals in any such lands, 'together with the right to prospect for, mine, and remove the same. Any coal or other mineral deposits in any such lands are subject to disposal by the United States, according to the coal and mineral land laws in force at the time of any such disposal. All qualified perexpressly given the right at all times to go upon any such lands entered or patented, for the purpose of prospecting for coal or other mineral therein. Any such prospector, however, is not to injure, damage or destroy any permanent improvements of any such entryman or patentee, and he is required to compensate the entryman or patentee for any damage on such lands.

sons are

A prospector who has thus discovered coal or minerals in or upon any lands that have been entered or patented as grazing or stock-raising lands under the provisions of the act, may, upon acquiring from the United States, the coal or other mineral deposits in such lands, and the right to mine and remove the same, then re-enter and occupy so much of the surface of such land as may be reasonably incident to the mining

and removal of the coal or other minerals, but upon the following conditions:

"1. Before re-entering for mining and removing the minerals, he must secure the written consent or waiver of the homestead entryman or patentee, and

"2. He must pay damages to crops or tangible improvements if and when an agreement is reached as to the amount of such damages.

"In lieu of either of the provisions numbered 1 or 2, he may execute a bond or undertaking to the United States for the use and benefit of the entryman, patentee or owner of the land, to secure the payment of all damages to crops or tangible improvements of the entryman or owner, as such damages may be determined and fixed in an action brought upon the bond or undertaking in any proper court. The bond or undertaking must be in form and in accordance with rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior and is to be approved by and filed with the register and receiver of the land office in the district wherein the land is situated.

"Any patents issued for coal or other mineral deposits under the provisions of the act, must contain notations declaring them to be subject to the provisions of the act with reference to the disposition, occupancy and use of the land as permitted to an entryman or patentee. "Under the first section of the act no land can be entered as a stockraising homestead until the lands shall have been designated by the Secretary of the Interior 'as stock-raising lands.' After the lands have been so designated by the secretary, then qualified persons may enter and hold the same for the purposes contemplated by the act and may hold and possess the same for such purposes as against all persons except mining prospectors and those who have acquired the right to mine and remove minerals discovered, as provided in section 9.

"An entryman, patentee or owner of any such lands may, without doubt, make a valid mining location upon the lands, the same as any other person, but in making his mining location, he must comply with the law in manner and form as if he were a stranger.

"The entryman, patentee or owner of lands acquired under this act for grazing or stock-raising purposes, has no preference right whatever to locate a mining claim upon the land. In this respect he is on an equality with all other persons and can take no advantage whatever of the fact that he is the owner or in the possession of the land. "The rights of all persons making mining locations upon any such land used for grazing or stock-raising purposes, must be measured and determined by the rules of priority that govern in relation to the location of mining claims upon public lands generally.

"Such grazing or stock-raising lands, held under the act, are, for the purposes of making mining locations, in effect, public lands.

"The fact that the notice of a mining location was posted in the night time could not affect its validity, if the locator otherwise complied with the law.

"The owner or occupant of any such grazing or stock-raising lands who defaces or destroys a notice posted upon such lands of a mining location, is subject to the same penalty and punishment as a person who destroys any notice of a mining location."

LIMESTONE DEPOSITS OF MCCLOUD RIVER, SHASTA COUNTY, AND THEIR POSSIBLE VALUE FOR CEMENT MATERIAL.

By W. B. TUCKER, Mining Engineer.

Description of the McCloud Limestone.

In the Redding Folio of the United States Geological Survey this belt of limestone is described as follows: The limestone can be traced more or less continuously for twenty-five miles from the north end of the Sacramento Valley, near Lilienthal, northward to Nawtawakit Mountain, where it passes beyond the quadrangle boundary. Near Lilienthal it begins with a series of small limestone lenses, apparently included in Dekkas andesite and worn down to the level of the valley plain. Although much metamorphosed and in some places wholly crystalline, they contain distinct traces of fossils definitely fixing their

View of McCloud Limestone Exposure, Section 13, Township 34 North, Range 4 West, Shasta County.

age. Farther north they rise above the plain and form hills increasing in prominence to Gray Rocks. For ten miles beyond Pit River the escarpment of the McCloud limestone forms one of the principal topographic features, but it is very much cut up by quartz-augite-diorite into irregular patches of limestone separated from one another by distances varying from a few feet to over two miles. How much of this irregularity may be due to the original lenticular character of the limestone is not known, but there can be no doubt that it is mostly due to the dissecting igneous rock. The largest mass is that opposite the United States Fishery, in Sec. 13, T. 34 N., R. 4 W. Two other large masses occur in the Hirz Mountain region, but farther north, in the western portion of Nawtawakit Mountain, there is a considerable decrease in size.