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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
Mining Engineering and Mining Law by James D Hague (PH 2-14) (1904) (11 pages)
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Page: of 11
such exterior surface lines; and, so far as the
deeper relations of the lode to the adjoining
land may be concerned, the “top or apex,” thus
interpreted, would be substantially anywhere
above and along the side-line boundary plane,
where the lode in its “downward course” departs from the originally patented claim and
enters “the land adjoining.”
It is hardly conceivable that the framers of
the law had any mental conception of its purpose and intent, substantially inconsistent or at
variance with this view; and inasmuch as the
law of 1872 was enacted for the purpose of
simplifying, establishing and confirming an unassailable title to the rights intended to be
granted thereby, it seems unreasonable that
its framers could have consciously and intentionally introduced into the language of the act
an enigmatic phrase or clause to obscure its
true meaning and intent; and it is wholly inconceivable that they intended to propound
a Sphinx-like riddle of the real or ideal lode,
tending, through ambiguity, uncertainty and
misapplication of terms, to confuse, unsettle
and destroy the foundation and the purpose of
the law.
Of all the questions herein suggested, touching the perplexing complications of end-lines
and side-lines, the puzzling identity of lodes
and the doubtful place of the true top or apex,
the last named have perhaps been the most
fruitful source of conflicting interests and bitter controversy. Some of the difficulties of the
apex riddle were plainly illustrated by an expert witness on the stand in a case on trial in
Colorado many years ago, who, hard pressed
by critical counsel for some more definite expression of his views, replied by way of an
object lesson, standing up, touching with one
hand the top of his head, and saying: “If I
stand upright, here is my apex; but,” removing
his hand to a conspicuously expanded waistband, “if I lie flat on my back, where is my
apex?” But that witness’s confidence in the
top of his head as his apex would prove to be
wholly misplaced, in the opinions of some
lawyers and experts, according to whose hairsplitting definitions an apex might be found
in the extreme end of each and every outcropping hair, however long, on the top of his
head, all of which might, if so inclined, form
a halo of outcrops, not all within the exterior
limits of his side-lines or end-lines, dipping in
all directions, at every conceivable angle,
towards a common center beneath the surface.
And if he happened to be bald-headed, would
he forfeit his “top or apex,” or lose his selfpossession, with the loss of his hair?
Imagine a tree or a group of neighboring
trees with roots descending thousands of feet
into the adjoining land, the ownership of such
roots, in their entire depth, being controlled by
possession of their tops or apexes. Would these
tops or apexes be in the ground where the
roots centered at and about the trunk or trunks
of the tree or trees? Or, would they be in the
air, in the topmost branches of the tree or
trees? And, if some of these topmost branches
and outcropping leaves chanced to overhang
the neighboring ground beyond the surface
boundary of the owner of the tree or trees,
would the root or roots, in their entire depth,
become the possession of the owner of the
ground thus overhung by the ubiquitous “top
or apex” of the tree in question?
I hope that enough has been said to plainly
show the important and significant relations of
the United States mining law to the vocation
of the American mining engineer.