ABSTRACT
The second provision that expanded a single claimant's control was the so-called extralateral rights provision, which allowed a claimant to control "all veins, lodes, and ledges throughout their entire depth," whether or not they remained confined within the limits of the claim as located on the surface.11 But this highly technical, massively litigated, and much criticized provision (see chapter 6) had two important qualifications. First, in order for it to apply, the "top or apex" of the vein, lode, or ledge had to be within the geographic limits of the claim. Second, th^ e vein, lode, or ledge could be controlled outside the claim only to the extent it projected from the side, rather than from the end lines, when the claim as located on the surface was projected downward.12 The extralateral rights provision operates in some circumstances to give the discoverer of a lode deposit an extra reward that might approach monopoly control over the deposit. But the sharp limits Congress placed on its application actually support, rather than contradict, the idea that, in the main, Congress did not intend to give the discoverer monopoly control over a particular deposit. Obedient to this intention, the courts have tended to construe the extralateral rights provision strictly, and have presumed that as a special modification of the statute's general plan it does not apply unless the claimant seeking to invoke the provision clearly demonstrates otherwise.13
