Mineral claim

“ For the most part, however, the native metals and ores of the precious and many of the common metals are too widely disseminated in the metamorphic rocks to be of commercial importance, and a still further concentration, principally in fissures and other cavities, is necessary before they can be of value to man. This secondary concentration is much the same as in the case of the deposition of lead and zinc ores in cavities in sedimentary rocks, and results largely from the solution and redeposition, sometimes by replacement, of mineral matter by heated waters. ”

“ By the erosion of the igneous rocks the metals have been distributed among sedimentary strata, and even the sea has taken into solution an appreciable amount of gold and other metals, but in this widely diffused condition they are wholly useless to man. The concentration which has made them available is due to the interaction of many agencies. Earth movements fracturing deeply the rocks of the crust, the intrusion of heated masses, the circulation of underground waters, have all cooperated in the concentration of the metals of mineral veins. ”

“ In some countries, especially where vegetation is scanty, the outcrop of a body of mineral may be traced by a difference in the vegetation. In South Africa a chain of pools usually follows the course of a line fault, which in its turn marks where an intrusive lode carrying mineral separates two different formations. As a rule, any heavy mineral is worth investigating. Even in remote regions silver, mercury, tin, nickel, platinum, copper, and several other metals are worth paying attention to. ”

“ The treasures of commercially valuable ore-deposits have been hid by nature whimsically throughout the earth, here and there, by no rule of geography or latitude, and with a great disregard of equality. A nation’s needs or desires for mineral wealth have no stated relation to its actual mineral possessions ”

“ Precious metals (gold, silver, palladium, and platinum) were found mainly in association with such base metals as copper, lead, and zinc. Industrial minerals are represented by a broad range of carbonate and silicate rocks, clays, gravels and sands, and volcanic material. Mineral fuels included coal (lignite) , natural gas, and petroleum.
Until the early 1990s, the mining, processing, and downstream exploitation of base metals established the region as a major European source of copper, lead, and zinc and a major world producer of chromite. ”

“ While intrinsically the precious metals are the more valuable, in the aggregate, the nonprecious metals have probably contributed as much or more to the general wealth of the country.
A division of lands into agricultural and mineral would also be a most uncertain guide to a proper construction of the word 'mineral,' since most of the lands included in the limits of this grant are neither one nor the other, but desert or rocky land, of no present value for agriculture, and of little value for their mineral deposits. ”

“ Mineral lands, as the phrase has been applied in the administration of public lands, embrace not only those which the lexicon defines as mineral, but, in addition, such as are valuable for deposits of marble, slate, petroleum, asphaltum, and even guano. ”

“ The fact that no such limits were imposed on veins of coal or other minerals or metals indicates, not that the act was intended to be confined to the minerals enumerated in § 2, since that would be a clear restriction upon the words 'valuable mineral deposits' in the 1st section, but that these particular metals stood in special need of limitation and protection. ”

“ The enriching minerals have been introduced in solution, and the solvent has found its way through the rock because of its natural character, and not because geological movements have opened it. Porous sandstones are one of the most common cases. Deposits of silver ores have been extensively mined at St George in southern Utah, consisting of films of argentite and cerargyrite, which have been precipitated upon fossil leaves, sticks, and in the sandstone itself. ”

“ On the National Importance of Mineral Possessions, and the Cultivation of Geological Inquiry.
The importance of the metallic ores and other mineral substances, considered as instrumental in the advancement of national prosperity, is obvious to every one. In announcing that a certain country possesses extensive and skilfully worked mines, either of coal, of iron, copper, tin, lead, or other of the numerous ores, we at once proclaim her wealth in terms that all must understand. ”

“ Minerals.—The mineral resources of the kingdom, though capable of further development, are not rich. They are chiefly confined to the mountains, where iron, coal, copper, lead, zinc, silver and sulphur are mined in small quantities. ”

“ When, therefore, adjacent or underlying excavations cause earth movements in a neighbor's property, litigation is likely to ensue and the geologist is likely to be called in. The long-wall method of coal mining, extensively practiced in certain parts of the United States, is slowly withdrawing support from the ground overlying the coal seams, resulting in damages to surface structures and in some cases to overlying mineral deposits. ”

“ Missing from the lists of the most abundant minerals and rocks, are the greater part of the commercially important mineral resources—including such as coal, oil, gas, iron ore, copper, gold, and silver,—implying that these mineral products, notwithstanding their great absolute bulk and commercial importance, occur in relatively insignificant amounts as compared with the common rock minerals of the earth. ”

“ Every country in the globe is deficient in supplies of some minerals. The United States is better off than any other country, but still lacks many mineral commodities (see pp. 396-399.) No single continent has sufficient reserves of all mineral commodities.
For the world, however, it may be stated with reasonable certainty that the reserves of the principal minerals are now known to be ample with the exception of those of oil, tin, and perhaps gold and silver. By ample we mean sufficient to give no cause for worry for the next few decades. ”

“ When the miner hoists his ore [1] to the surface, the contained metal may be either in the native uncombined state, as, for example, native gold, native silver, native copper, or combined with other substances forming minerals of more or less complex composition, as, for example, telluride of gold, sulphide of silver, sulphide of copper. In both cases the valuable mineral is always associated with minerals of no value. ”

“ In the judgment of the writer, the phenomena presented by the Leadville ore deposits can be as well or better accounted for by supposing that the plane of contact between the limestone and porphyry has been the conduit through which heated mineral solutions coming from deep seated and remote sources have flowed, removing something from both the overlying and underlying strata, and by substitution depositing sulphides of lead, iron, silver, etc., with silica. ”

“ Many of the ores of iron and manganese, some of those of other metals, and all coal and salt occur in beds, and here it is important to see what is the thickness, and to ascertain whether the mineral is equally pure throughout. Iron ores occur in most countries, and unless very pure and within easy reach of water-carriage, are not likely to be worth transport. ”

“ The government of the United States has opened the public mineral lands to exploration for the precious metals, and, as a reward to the successful explorer, grants to him the right to extract and possess the mineral within certain prescribed limits. ”

“ Every addition to our knowledge of the mineral resources of other parts of the world carries us nearer and nearer to the conclusion that the old idea of the superlative abundance of the natural mineral resources of England is a delusion. We are gradually discovering that, with the one exception of tin-stone, we have but little if any more than an average supply of useful ores and mineral fuel. ”

“ For instance, manganese moves from three principal sources to four or five consuming centers. Chromite moves from two principal sources; tungsten also from two. Even for certain commodities which are widely distributed and move in large amounts, the concentration of movement is rather marked; for instance, the world movement of coal is controlled by England, the United States, and Germany. In other words, although the world movement of mineral commodities is widespread and exhibits many complex features, most of the individual minerals follow two or three salient lines of movement. ”

“ Mineral products formed by sedimentary processes include sandstones, limestones, and shales, used as building stone and road materials; certain sedimentary deposits of iron, like the Clinton ores of the southeastern United States and the Brazilian ores; important phosphate deposits; most deposits of salt, gypsum, potash, nitrates, etc.; comparatively few and unimportant copper deposits; and important placer deposits of gold, tin, and other metals, and precious stones. With the aid of organic agencies, sedimentary processes also account for the primary deposition of coal and oil. ”

“ Where uprising heated waters carrying mineral solutions are proceeding from deep seated masses of igneous rocks they often deposit a portion of their contents in limestone beds. At Leadville, in Colorado, for example, great quantities of rich silver lead ore, which have yielded not a little gold, have been obtained from the limestones, while other rocks, though apparently equally favourably situated, are barren. The lead and fluorspar deposits of the north of England (Alston Moor, Derbyshire) occur in limestone. In the Malay States the limestones have been impregnated with tin oxide. ”

“ Evidently the development of sediments from igneous rocks has involved the destruction of much of the feldspars and ferro-magnesian silicates, and the building from the elements of these destroyed minerals of more quartz, white mica, clay, dolomite, calcite, chlorite and limonite. The composition of the minerals of the sedimentary rocks is such as to indicate that the constituents of the air and water have been added in important amounts to accomplish this change of mineral character. ”

“ When we compare the first and second tabulations with the third it is at once apparent that with the possible although only occasional exception of iron the production of an ore-body from the normal rocks which constitute the outer mass of the earth requires the local concentration of each of the metals by one or several geological processes, and to a degree that is only occasionally developed in the ordinary course of nature. ”

“ To add to the discomfiture of the situation, Commissioner of the General Land Office Binger Hermann, about this time held in similar cases coming before him. that there could be no valid mineral location prior to a discovery, and that the discovery should not merely reveal indications of mineral, but should be based upon the finding of mineral in paying quantities. In consequence of these rulings, the spirits of the Scrippers became wrought up to the highest pitch of exuberence, while those of the mineral locators were correspondingly dejected. ”

“ Which way of proving mines or minerals is far better and speedier than that which is usually done by a decoction and exhalation of lead in the Cupel. Thus may you mix five, six, eight or ten grains of some finely powdered mineral, with one or two lots of Venice glass being of easie fusion, and put the matter thus mixed in a well covered crucible, and by melting it reduce it into glass. The colour which will be in the said glass, will shew what metal the minera contained: Lead will yield a duskish colour, tin, a white, copper, a Sea-green ”

“ Mineral Resources.—Numerous mineral deposits have been discovered, but little has been determined with respect to their value. Sub-bituminous coal is widely distributed. That near the surface is generally poor in quality and the difficulties of deep mining may be great because of folds and faults in the rocks. ”

“ Of far the greatest importance of all the ore-bodies in troughs are the iron ores of the Lake Superior region, now the most productive of all the iron-mining districts. In a series of sedimentary formations, generally of Huronian age, and with associated eruptives, there occur strata consisting of a cherty iron carbonate, which were probably originally marine deposits akin to glauconite. They rest upon relatively impervious rocks, and are often penetrated by basaltic dikes. ”

“ Mechanical erosion of preëxisting mineral deposits or rocks and their transportation, sorting, and deposition are responsible for the placers of gold, tin, tungsten, platinum, and various precious stones, and for certain iron sands and conglomerates. Sands, sandstones, shales, and certain clays and bauxites also belong in this group. These deposits may be formed under air or under water, and under various climatic and topographic conditions. During the process of formation the minerals of differing density are more or less sorted out and tend to become segregated in layers. ”

“ If the quantity of siliceous and aluminous ingredients brought up by such springs were great, instead of being utterly insignificant, it might be contended that the mineral matter thus expelled implies simply the decomposition of ordinary subterranean rocks; but the prodigious excess of carbonate of lime over every other element must, in the course of time, cause the crust of the earth below to be almost entirely deprived of its calcareous constituents, while we know that the same action imparts to newer deposits, ever forming in seas and lakes, an excess of carbonate of lime. ”