<P> The Chaffee law of 1869 and the placer law of 1871 were combined into the General Mining Act of 1872 . The mining law of 1866 had given discoverers rights to stake mining claims to extract gold, silver, cinnabar (the principal ore of mercury) and copper . When Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872, the wording was changed to "or other valuable deposits," giving greater scope to the law . The 1872 law was codified as 30 U.S.C. § § 22 - 42 </P> <P> The 1872 act also granted extralateral rights to lode claims, and fixed the maximum size of lode claims as 1500 feet (457m) long and 600 feet (183m) wide . </P> <P> The Act of 1872 also set the price for land assumed under the mining act: </P> <P> FORTY - SECOND CONGRESS . Sess. II Ch. 152 . 1872 . (approved July ninth, eighteen hundred and seventy) a patent shall issue for the placer - claim, including such vein or lode, upon the payment of five dollars per acre such vein or lode claim, and twenty - five feet of surface on each side thereof . The reminder of the placer - claim, or any placer - claim not embracing any vein or lode claim, shall be paid for at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents per acre, together with all costs of proceedings; . </P>

Who enforces the hardrock mining and reclamation act