General Mining Act of 1872 - The Mining Law of 1872

The Mining Law of 1872

The Chaffee law of 1866 and the placer law of 1870 were combined into the General Mining Act of 1872. The mining law of 1866 had given discoverers rights to stake mining claims to extract gold, silver, cinnabar (the principal ore of mercury) and copper. When Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872, the wording was changed to "or other valuable deposits," giving greater scope to the law. The 1872 law was codified as 30 U.S.C. §§ 22-42

The 1872 act also granted extralateral rights to lode claims, and fixed the maximum size of lode claims as 1500 feet (457m) long and 600 feet (183m) wide.

The Act of 1872 also set the price for land assumed under the mining act:

FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS. Sess. II Ch. 152. 1872. 95 approved July ninth, eighteen hundred and seventy) a patent shall issue for the placer-claim, including such vein or lode, upon the payment of five dollars per acre such vein or lode claim, and twenty-five feet of surface on each side thereof. The reminder of the placer-claim, or any placer-claim not embracing any vein or lode claim, shall be paid for at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents per acre, together with all costs of proceedings;.

It set the price of the land claim to range $2.50 to $5.00 per acre. This price set by law has remained the same since 1872.