North Dakota.-The location certificate must contain: (1) name of lode; (2) name of locator; (3) date of location; (4) number of feet in length claimed on each side of the discovery shaft; (5) number of feet in width claimed on each side of lode; (6) general course of lode as near as may be;1 (7) such a description as shall identify the claim with reasonable certainty.2

Oregon.

No provision is made as to the contents of a notice, other than that it shall contain a description of the claim "as near as may be." Continuous working dispenses with the necessity of a record.3

South Dakota. The requirements as to certificate of 1ocation are the same as in North Dakota.1

Washington. While a record is contemplated, no formal certificate is required.

Wyoming. The certificate must contain: (1) name of the lode; (2) name of the locator or locators; (3) date of location; (4) length of claim along the vein, measured from center of discovery shaft, and general course of the vein as far as known; (5) amount of surface ground claimed on either side of the center of the discovery shaft or workings; (6) a description of the claim by such designation of natural or fixed objects as shall identify the claim beyond question.

381. Rules of construction applied. In the initiation of rights upon public mineral lands, as well as in the various steps taken by the miner to perfect his location, his proceedings are to be regarded with indulgence, and the notices required invariably receive at the hands of the courts a liberal construction.?

1 Rev. Code 1895, 1428.

2 Rev. Code 1893, 1429.

3 Hill's Annot. Stats., 2 3828.

Comp. Laws 1887, 22 1999, 2000. Adopted by South Dakota-Laws

1890, ch. cv., ? 1.

5 Hill's Annot. Stats., 2214.

Session Laws 1890-91, ch. xlvi., pp. 179–180.

7 Carter v. Bacigalupi, 83 Cal. 187; Prince of Wales Lode, 2 Copp's L.O. 2,3.

To hold him to absolute technical strictness in all the minor details, would be practically to defeat the manifest end and object of the law. The pioneer prospector, as a rule, is neither a lawyer nor a surveyor. Neither mathematical precision as to measurement, nor technical accuracy of expression in the preparation of notices, is either contemplated or required.' The law, being designed for the encouragement and benefit of the miners, should be liberally interpreted, "looking to substance, rather than shadow, "and should be administered on the lines of obvious com"mon sense." Mere imperfections in the certificate will not render it void. In matters of description, calls that are erroneous will not destroy the validity of the notice or certificate, if by excluding them a sufficient description remain to enable its application to be ascertained.1

2

Thus, where a certificate of a location specified its situs as being in the wrong county, it being otherwise valid, and having been recorded in the right county, the erroneous statement was mere surplusage, and as such was rejected.5

In the absence of a local requirement to that effect, the certificate need not state either the district, county, or state in which the location is situated."

A mistake in the certificate as to the direction and / course, such as "northerly" instead of " instead of "northeasterly," the description being aided by monuments on the ground, is of no moment.7

The certificate is not required to show the precise boundaries of the claim as marked on the ground, but it is sufficient if it contains directions, which, taken in connection with such boundaries, will enable a person of reasonable intelligence to find the claim and trace the lines.

1Book v. Justice M. Co., 58 Fed. 106, 115.

2 Cheesman v. Hart, 42 Fed. 98, 99.

3 Bennett v. Harkrader, 158 U. S. 441, 443.

4 Duryea v. Boucher, 67 Cal. 141.

5 Metcalf v. Prescott, 10 Mont. 283.

6 Carter v. Bacigalupi, 83 Cal. 187.

Book v. Justice M. Co., 58 Fed. 106, 115.

8

Gamer v. Glenn, 8 Mont. 371; Upton v. Larkin, 7 Mont. 449; Flavin v. Mattingly, 8 Mont. 242; Brady v. Husby, 21 Nev. 453.

2382. Variation between calls in certificate and monuments on the ground. When it is once conceded that a recorded certificate of location is a statutory instrument affecting real property,' it follows, that general rules regarding descriptive calls in this class of instruments apply with equal force to the construction of such certificates.

Mr. Washburn states the general rule to be, that courses and distances are generally regarded as more or less uncertain, and always give place, in questions of doubt or discrepancy, to monuments and boundaries that are referred to as indicating and identifying the land."

This doctrine has been uniformly applied by the courts. to certificates of location of mining claims.3

The general rule applicable to patents, deeds, and other instruments of conveyance, that where a monument is referred to in a descriptive call, and it has been obliterated or destroyed, parol evidence may be introduced to show where it was actually located in the field, does not, it seems, apply to certificates of location. As heretofore indicated, in order to invoke the rule, that courses and distance yield to monuments, these monuments must be actually existing, and parol evidence is inadmissible to point out where they were originally placed. The reason for this rule has been fully explained in a preceding section."

2383. "Natural objects" and "permanent monu"ments."-The words "natural objects" and "permanent "monuments are general terms, susceptible of different shades of meaning, depending largely upon their application. What might be regarded as a permanent monument for one purpose, might not be so considered with reference

1 See, ante, 2 379.

23 Washburn on Real Property, 3d ed., p. 348; 2 Devlin on Deeds, ? 1029.

3 Pollard v. Shively, 5 Colo. 309, 313; Book v. Justice M. Co., 58 Fed. 106, 115; Hoffman v. Beecher, 12 Mont. 489; Cullacott v. Cash G. S. M. Co., 8 Colo. 179; McEvoy v. Hyman, 25 Fed. 596, 599.

4 Pollard v. Shively, 5 Colo. 309, 318.

See, ante, 375, p. 489.

to a different purpose. The same rule applies to natural objects. There is no particular necessity for drawing a distinction between "natural objects," such as streams, rivers, ponds, highways, trees, and other things, ejusdem generis, and "permanent monuments," which may imply an element of artificial construction, it being the manifest intent of the law that any object of a fairly permanent character, whether natural or artificial, may, if sufficiently prominent, serve for the purpose of reference and identification.

As to whether a given notice or certificate of location contains such a description of the claim as located by reference to some natural object or permanent monument as will identify it, is a question of fact to be determined by the jury, and parol evidence is admissible for the purpose of proving that the thing named in the certificate is, in fact, a natural object or permanent monument. In the absence of evidence for, or against, the sufficiency of the reference in the notice, it will be presumed to be sufficient to identify the claim.1

The following cases indicate the views of the courts as to what are natural objects or permanent monuments:

Prominent posts, or stakes, firmly planted in the ground; stones, if of proper size and properly marked;" monuments, prospect holes, and shafts," may be sufficient 1 Quinby v. Boyd, 8 Colo. 194.

7

Eilers v. Boatman, 111 U. S. 356; Gamer v. Glenn, 8 Mont. 371; Brady v. Husby, 21 Nev. 453; Flavin v. Mattingly, 8 Mont. 242; Metcalf v. Prescott, 10 Mont. 283; Russell v. Chumasero, 4 Mont. 309.

3 Carter v. Bacigalupi, 83 Cal. 187; O'Donnell v. Glenn, 8 Mont. 248; Flavin v. Mattingly, 8 Mont. 242; Metcalf v. Prescott, 10 Mont. 283; Dillon v. Bayliss, 11 Mont. 171; Kelly v. Taylor, 23 Cal. 14; Prince of Wales Lode, 2 Copp's L. O. 2, 3.

Brady v. Husby, 21 Nev. 453; Gleeson v. Martin White M. Co., 13 Nev. 442; Hammer v. Garfield M. & M. Co., 130 U. S. 291, 299.

* Jupiter M. Co. v. Bodie Cons. M. Co., 7 Saw. 96, 112; Russell v. Chumasero, 4 Mont. 309; O'Donnell v. Glenn, 8 Mont. 248; Hanson v. Fletcher (Utah), 37 Pac. 480.

6 Russell v. Chumasero, 4 Mont. 309; Gamer v. Glenn, 8 Mont. 371.

7 Hanson v. Fletcher (Utah), 37 Pac. 480.

8 Id.

Jupiter M. Co. v. Bodie Cons. M. Co., 7 Saw. 96, 111; North Noonday M. Co. v. Orient M. Co., 6 Saw. 299, 312.

GG

as permanent monuments within the meaning of the law. The boundary lines of adjoining claims have uniformly been held to be such. A tree is a fixed natural object, and when marked artificially or naturally, there is less room to question its sufficiency than in the case of a shaft." A cañon, or any other prominent feature of the landscape, is a natural object.3

384. Effect of failure to comply with the law as to contents of certificate.-It follows from what we have heretofore said, that any notice or certificate of location which is used as the basis of the record, which fails to reasonably comply with the requirements of the federal law as to the contents of such record, is ineffectual and void. As to the omission of any of the other elements required by state legislation, in some of the states the law itself prescribes the penalty by providing that the failure to insert any of the requirements renders the location void. This is the rule in California, Colorado, Arizona, North and South Dakota. The laws of the other states and territories. are silent upon the subject.

If the rules applicable to local regulations and customs* may be properly invoked in the case of statutory enactments. -that is, that a forfeiture is not worked unless the custom or local rule in terms so declares-the provisions of the statutes in the last class of states, exacting requirements in excess of those made essential by the federal law, are merely directory, and their omission is accompanied with no serious consequences. We do not see why such rule. should not be applicable alike to local and statutory regulations. As to the other states, where legislation of the

Upton v. Larkin, 7 Mont. 449; Russell v. Chumasero, 4 Mont. 309; Hammer v. Garfield M. & M. Co., 130 U. S. 291; Metcalf v. Prescott, 10 Mont. 283; Book v. Justice M. Co., 58 Fed. 106; Southern Cross M. Co. v. Europa M. Co., 15 Nev. 383; Gamer v. Glenn, 20 Pac. 658; Live Yankee Co. v. Oregon Co., 7 Cal. 41. Contra: Baxter Mt. G. M. Co. v. Patterson,