30 U.S.C. § 27 — Mining tunnels; right to possession of veins on line with; abandonment of right

This is one undivided provision. When someone digs a tunnel to develop a vein or lode, or to discover mines, the tunnel's owners get the right to possess any veins or lodes within 3,000 feet of the tunnel's face, measured along the tunnel's line — as long as those veins or lodes weren't previously known to exist and are discovered through the tunnel. This right is the same as if the vein had been found from the surface. If someone else stakes a claim on the line of the tunnel, for a vein or lode not appearing on the surface, and they do this after the tunnel work started and while it's being prosecuted with reasonable diligence (steady effort), that new claim is invalid. But if the tunnel's owners fail to work on the tunnel for six months, the law treats that as an abandonment — a giving up — of their right to all undiscovered veins along the tunnel's line.