however it might run, but extending indefinitely downward, with a strip
of surface on, or embracing the vein's outcrop, for the placing of
necessary machinery and buildings. Under this theory, the lode was the
property, and the surface became a mere easement.

"This early California theory of a mining claim, consisting of a certain
number of running feet of vein, with a strip of land covering the
surface length of the claim, is, the obvious foundation for the Federal
legislation and present system of public disposition and private
ownership of the mineral lands west of the Missouri River. Contrasted
with this is the mode of disposition of mineral-bearing lands east of
the Missouri River, where the common law has been the rule, and where
the surface tract has always carried with it all minerals vertically
below it.

"The great coal, copper, lead and zinc wealth east of the Rocky
Mountains has all passed with the surface titles, and there can be
little doubt if California had been contiguous to the eastern metallic
regions, and its mineral development progressed naturally with the
advantage of homemaking settlements, the power of common-law precedent
would have governed its whole mining history. But California was one of
these extraordinary historic exceptions that defy precedent and create
original modes of life and law. And since the developers of the great
precious metal mining of the Far West have, for the most part, swarmed
out of the California hive, California ideas have not only been
everywhere dominant over the field of the industry, but have stemmed the
tide of Federal land policy, and given us a statute-book with English
common law in force over half the land and California common law ruling
in the other."