ABSTRACT
While the Mining Law was being fashioned between 1866 and 1872, there was universal agreement that mineral exploration and development on federal lands was unqualifiedly beneficial. After all, two decades of experience had demonstrated the fruits of the tacit federal policy allowing such development. It was therefore scarcely surprising that the 1872 law was titled an act to "promote the Development of the mining Resources of the United States." 1 Like the 1866 legislation, the 1872 act expressed the policy of free access to federal lands for mineral exploration and exploitation. Even in this free-access section, however, the policy was not without limit. As in the 1866 act it was qualified by an opaque reference to "regulations prescribed by law" and the less obscure incorporation of the customs or rules of the miners themselves. 2
