A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, California, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.
Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking.
The General Mining Act of 1872 is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs prospecting and mining for economic minerals, such as gold, platinum, and silver, on federal public lands. This law, approved on May 10, 1872, codified the informal system of acquiring and protecting mining claims on public land, formed by prospectors in California and Nevada from the late 1840s through the 1860s, such as during the California Gold Rush. All citizens of the United States of America 18 years or older have the right under the 1872 mining law to locate a lode or placer (gravel) mining claim on federal lands open to mineral entry. These claims may be located once a discovery of a locatable mineral is made. Locatable minerals include but are not limited to platinum, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, uranium and tungsten.
A declaratory judgment, also called a declaration, is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a civil dispute. The declaratory judgment is generally considered a statutory remedy and not an equitable remedy in the United States, and is thus not subject to equitable requirements, though there are analogies that can be found in the remedies granted by courts of equity. A declaratory judgment does not by itself order any action by a party, or imply damages or an injunction, although it may be accompanied by one or more other remedies.
In the American legal system, prior appropriation water rights is the doctrine that the first person to take a quantity of water from a water source for "beneficial use" has the right to continue to use that quantity of water for that purpose. Subsequent users can take the remaining water for their own use if they do not impinge on the rights of previous users. The doctrine is sometimes summarized, "first in time, first in right".
The historical Burro Schmidt Tunnel is located in the El Paso Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, in eastern Kern County, southern California.
A land patent is a form of letters patent assigning official ownership of a particular tract of land that has gone through various legally-prescribed processes like surveying and documentation, followed by the letter's signing, sealing, and publishing in public records, made by a sovereign entity.
A placer claim is a mining claim on gravel or ground from which minerals are extracted using water. In the United States, the valuable mineral in a placer claim is almost always gold, although other nations mine placer deposits of platinum, tin, and diamonds.
The Case of Mines or R v Earl of Northumberland was decided in 1568.
A warden's court is a special court established to deal with disputes relating to mining and mineral tenements. It is presided over by a mining warden. Historically all Australian states had warden's courts, which were established in the late 19th century during the Australian gold rushes. However, in several states the position of mining warden has been abolished or had its powers reduced.
Binger Hermann was an American attorney and politician in Oregon. A native of Maryland, he immigrated to the Oregon Territory with his parents as part of the Baltimore Colony. Hermann served in both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly and as a Republican in the United States Congress.
Recreational gold mining and prospecting has become a popular outdoor recreation in a number of countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Wales, in Canada and in the United States especially. Recreational mining is often small-scale placer mining but has been challenged for environmental reasons. The disruption of old gold placer deposits risks the reintroduction of post gold rush pollution, including mercury in old mining deposits and mine tailings.
Mining in the United States has been active since the beginning of colonial times, but became a major industry in the 19th century with a number of new mineral discoveries causing a series of mining rushes. In 2015, the value of coal, metals, and industrial minerals mined in the United States was US$109.6 billion. 158,000 workers were directly employed by the mining industry.
Rancho Las Mariposas was a 44,387-acre (179.63 km2) Mexican land grant in Alta California, located in present-day Mariposa County, California.
Water law in the United States refers to the Water resources law laws regulating water as a resource in the United States. Beyond issues common to all jurisdictions attempting to regulate water's uses, water law in the United States must contend with:
The New World Mining District is an area of mineralization that sits within Gallatin National Forest to the northeast of Cooke City and Yellowstone National Park, in Park County, Montana, United States. The district hosts extensive deposits of gold, silver and copper in zones of carbonate replacement. These deposits are the result of Eocene hydrothermal alteration of Cambrian carbonates related to the Absaroka volcanic field. Alteration and mineralization occur primarily within carbonate clasts hosted in a volcanic breccia pipe and in carbonate rocks that lie adjacent to that breccia.
Rosemont Copper is a proposed large open pit copper mine project by the Canadian mining corporation Hudbay Minerals. The project site is located within the Santa Rita Mountains and Coronado National Forest, in Pima County of southern Arizona. It has undergone a permitting review process under the direction of the United States Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and has been delayed by legal judgements and suspension of its operating permit by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
George Ulysses Young was an American businessman and politician. Active initially in journalism, he redirected his business interests to the expansion of railroads and the promotion of mining. Politically he served as Secretary of Arizona Territory and as Mayor of Phoenix.
Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U.S. 502 (1917), is United States Supreme Court decision that is notable as an early example of the patent misuse doctrine. It held that, because a patent grant is limited to the invention described in the claims of the patent, the patent law does not empower the patent owner, by notices attached to the patented article, to extend the scope of the patent monopoly by restricting the use of the patented article to materials necessary for their operation but forming no part of the patented invention, or to place downstream restrictions on the articles making them subject to conditions as to use. The decision overruled The Button-Fastener Case, and Henry v. A.B. Dick Co., which had held such restrictive notices effective and enforceable.
Highland Park, also known as Highland Pines, is a populated place situated near Prescott and within the Prescott National Forest, in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. Highland Pines is the promotional name associated with the Highland Park areas several subdivisions. In the Arizona Territorial era up to 1912, and Statehood until around the late 1920s, this particular area of land acted as a cattle ranch with a mining history, lies within the Thumb Butte Mining District, which appears to be initially platted by the Arizona Corporation Highland Pine Properties Inc. beginning in the late 1950s.
