the California Gold Rush miners created an extralegal code, which became law in the Mining Act of 1872. It granted open access for exploration on public lands and the exclusive right to mine a discovery. The law was democratic in that claims were cheap—$2.50 to $5.00 an acre—and limited in size, and claimants could retain their claims only as long as they worked them. Controversies over competing claims, however, made them expensive and kept lawyers busy for the rest of the century and beyond. Mining companies could and would extract hundreds of millions of dollars of minerals with enormous
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