sale price of products destined for national consumption. The concessionaire shall be obliged to furnish the Government's nominees with all data and facilities required for the discharge of their commitment.

Art. 24. Exploitation concessions shall lapse:

、a) Through failure to pay contributions on superficial extension during three consecutive half years.

(b) Through failure to pay for one year the production tax.

(c) Through not having obtained during five consecutive years the minimum production provided for by the concession, and

(d) Through refusal on the part of the concessionaire to contribute to national consumption in the corresponding proportion.

Art. 25. Exploitation concessions having been granted, the part of the preceding exploration concessions not covered shall become free for disposition and the Government may grant new exploration rights or new exploitation contracts over the same.

Art. 26. Petroleum concessions of exploration or exploitation do not carry to the concessionaire rights over mineral substances foreign to the concession which may be contained in the perimeter conceded; such substances may only be exploited through means of a denouncement in conformity with the Mining Code.

Art. 27. The rights of exploitation and free disposition which according to Art. 7 of the Mining Code mine owners possess in respect of all conceivable substances contained within the limits of their concession, do not operate in regard to petroleum and hydrocarbons, it being obligatory to apply for and obtain a concession for their exploitation in conformity with this enactment.

Art. 28. Petroleum claims at present denounced which in future shall become denouncable, can not become the object of substitution of which Art. 93 of the Mining Code treats and may only be acquired in conformity with this law. Art. 29. Under penalty of cancellation petroleum claims can not be transferred without permission of the Government. Questions which may arise over these can only be decided by the Republic's tribunals.

Art. 30. The petroleum industry is hereby declared a public utility; the expropriation of the superficial part of land necessary for the exploitation of deposits shall therefore proceed in accordance with legal enactments.

Art. 31. The Executive Power reserves in each petroliferous tract, according to its importance and location, two or more lots the exploration and exploitation of which shall only be conceded to national companies constituted with capital of the country. It may also reserve for direct exploitation by the State, the zone or zones which it may consider suitable.

Art. 32. Foreigners may neither acquire nor possess petroliferous claims within an extension of 50 kilometers from the frontiers, in accordance with the terms of Art. 39 of the Constitution.

Art. 33. Companies organized for the exploitation or exploration of petroliferous deposits shall be constituted in conformity with the Commercial Code and be considered as national companies with legal domicile in the Republic.

Art. 34. In regard to denouncements or applications pending at the promulgation of this law, the corresponding concessions to be granted shall be in conformity with this law.

Art. 35. Concessionaires of petroliferous deposits with titles granted before the coming in operation of this law may alter their concessions to be in conformity herewith, but in any case they will be subject to the payment of the contribution on superficial extension and that on production.

Art. 36. Concessionaires of exploitation deposits shall enjoy the privileges accorded to mine owners by the Mining Code and shall have the right to acquire

subject to existing legislation, right-of-way of transit and pipe line as found necessary. They may occupy within the limits of their claims the superficial extensions necessary for extraction works and for the establishment of storage and refineries of the products extracted and avail of surface and subsoil waters for the exploitation service. They may also establish docks, loading and unloading stations and subfluvial pipe lines with the approbation and authority of the Government.

Art. 37. Companies that construct pipe lines for the transport of their petroleum shall be obliged to transport the products of neighboring concessionaires who lack that facility, collecting for such service rates to be approved by the Government. Also those who possess refineries shall be obliged to treat the products of other producers provided that the capacities of such refineries is (are) superior to the output of their owners' exploitation.

Art. 38. Applications for concessions of exploration and exploitation shall be made to the Minister of Fomento and shall be granted subject to the terms of this enactment.

Art. 39. The Executive Power shall organize the office which is to deal with petroliferous concessions and shall arrange as to the procedure to be followed in the case of applications by holders of exploration concessions for exploitation contracts.

Art. 40. The Minister of Fomento will arrange that the Engineering Corps of Mines and Waters shall effect systematic works for the recognition and exploration of petroliferous deposits as they judge convenient allocation being made each year of the necessary amount in the General Budget of the Republic. That institution shall also formulate plans and maps showing the division in lots of the various deposits and prepare catastral plans in which shall be inscribed the concessions of exploration and exploitation which shall have been so granted.

Art. 41. The Government shall dictate the regulations necessary for the better application of this law.

Art. 42. All laws and regulations in opposition or contradiction of this enactment hereby become cancelled and void.

URUGUAY.

MINING LAW.

The Senate and Chamber of Representatives of the Republic of Uruguay, in General Assembly, March 6, 1913,

DECREE:

Art. I. From the promulgation of the present law, all petitions that may be presented for the register or denunciation of mines and all requests or judgment of denunciation on account of abandonment or depopulation or want of shelter or working, shall pay a tax of $0.25 (Twenty-five cents) per hectare, which shall be paid quarterly and remitted through the General Direction of Mines to the General State Treasury.

Art. II. Each of those claiming the best right to a concession, denouncement or register, or to the denunciation on account of abandonment or depopulation, is obliged to pay the tax during the litigation without right of reclaiming or of subsequent restitution. The litigants or interested persons, being several on each side, shall come to an agreement between themselves for the payment of the tax, within ten days, without detriment to the responsibility and of the caducity referred to in the following article.

Art. III. The nonpayment of two quarters, as also not arriving at an agreement within the ten days referred to in the preceding article, for the mere fact of being occasioned and without any other transaction or necessity of any declaration, shall lose all right of register or denunciation, the mine being susceptible to a new denunciation, by a third person, who shall pay, on presenting himself before the Judge with the first petition, the amount of the quarterly tax. Art. IV. Once the mine is registered, measured and marked, a title shall be issued by the competent Judge, with the indispensable references and inserts. The Ministry of Industries shall countersign that title, which shall be of unquestionable validity before any authority of the Republic.

Art. V. For the title issued and countersigned by the Ministry of Industries to continue in its validity, it shall be necessary that a year and a half after its being countersigned, the concessionaire, besides paying the quarterly tax, proves having spent in the exploitation of the mineral, on instruments and machinery, the amount of five thousand pesos ($5,000.00) for each concession.

The rights of the concessionaire that fails to pay the quarterly quota before the year and a half of the title being countersigned shall lapse, that concession not being able to be again adjudged without previous bids at auction before the National Judge of Finance, with a month's advertisement, and to the best bidder.

In case persons interested in the concession do not present themselves, the previous concessonaire may again obtain the title, filling the terms of the law and again taking the proper course for the obligation to which insert 1 refers from the date of the new title.

Art. VI. From the promulgation of this law, there shall not be judicially transacted nor given course in the administrative way to any affair on mines, nor

shall there be authorized concessions of any kind, without the intervention and report of the General Direction of Mines with audience, in every case, of the Fiscal of Finance.

The General Direction of Mines besides presenting itself to intervene in all #expedients that should be initiated on mines, shall also present itself in all Judicial or administrative transactions, and take full account of them, as also of archives, whatever their character may be, and demand the strict fulfillment of this law and of the dispositions of the Mining Code, especially in what refers to denunciations.

Art. VII. Immediately after this law is promulgated, the General Direction of Mines shall request that all the registers or denunciations where it is not recorded that they have practised the works that those articles establish, or that they have not proved through the report of the General Direction of Mines, be declared lapsed in conformity with articles 66, 67, and 71 of the Code in force.

The Judges shall declare the annulment according to article 70 of the Code, always that it is not proved that the expressed works have been realized. The term to realize said works shall be counted from the date of the respective register or denunciation.

All the new registers that should be effected from the denunciations referred to in the previous insert, shall also be declared lapsed "ipso jure."

From the declaration of annulment produced "ipso jure" there shall be no recourse whatsoever, and the mine may be registered or denounced by others.

Art. VIII. The registers and all the denunciations of mines in which no negotiation whatsoever has been made by the interested persons during three years, counting from the date of register or denunciation, are and shall be declared lapsed "ipso jure."

Art. IX. The dispositions of articles 7 and 8 shall only be appliable to registers and denunciations existing at the time of promulgation of this law. The new denunciations, registers or concessions, shall be controlled by the other dispositions of the present law, it being sufficient to preserve the title of property, the regular payment of the precept and the inversion of the capital that article 5 determines.

Art. X. In conformity with article 42 of the Code in force, the General Direction of Mines shall request that the registers and concessions of mines granted to persons that did not discover them, be declared lapsed and without effect.

If any opposition is made, it shall be sustained with a transfer to the General Direction of Mines, opening a term of justification according to the distance, and the allegations being produced, it shall be resolved within the term for the intermediates. From the sentence of the National Judge of Finance there shall be appeal before the tribunal of turn, whose sentence shall be final. In all the support, the Fiscal of Finance shall intervene.

Art. XI. The requests for registration or concession of mines shall be made separately for each mine or concession of a mine, not admitting in any manner to include together two or more concessions.

In the case of contiguous mines, after the first transactions, there may be made to run together the expedients on the request of the interested persons and previously reported on by the General Direction of Mines, if it should be favorable. The requests of any kind, at present accumulated, shall be cancelled at the request of said Direction, in the expedients in which there is nothing judged on the accumulation.

The brief of presentation shall be accompanied by a plan or sketch duly marked and in triplicate, of the mining concession, one of which shall remain in the possession of the interested party with the evidence signed by the Gen

eral Direction of Mines of the date of its presentation; the second shall be added to the expedient in transaction, and the third shall remain in the archives of the General Direction of Mines.

Art. XII. The publications of the register of mines (Article 38 of the Code), shall be made within ten days of being issued, in the "Diario Oficial" and in one of the newspapers of the Capital of the Department where the mine is situated, for twenty consecutive days, under the penalty of cancelling of the registration ipso jure," if those publications are not fulfilled and a writ to justify it presented to the "Diario Oficial" within twenty days following the last publication.

66

Art. XIII. The Government and Finance Notary shall immediately give notice to the General Direction of Mines, of everything recorded in the register of mines and of all requests for concessions or registrations, abandonment or denunciation that should have been presented to the Tribunal, as also of those that in the future should be presented on registration or concession, requesting to that effect from the petitioner the complete copy of all petitions, documents or plans that the parties should present, which, duly authenticated and confronted, shall be passed to the General Direction of Mines with the sample of the Mineral in the case of article 34 of the Mining Code, issuing to the Direction the corresponding security for the identification of the sample that shall remain in deposit.

From the promulgation of this law, there shall be carried separately in the Office of the Government and Finance Notary, the following books, authenticated by the National Judge of Finance :

The book of registrations and denunciations of new mines.

That of abandonments and denouncements.

That of definite concessions.

The Judge of Finance shall see to it that these books are kept with due correctness and regularity.

Art. XIV. The Mining Code in force is interpreted as declaring that the restrictions relative to the registrations, as they can not be made in quantity by one single person or company, they are appliable to the denunciations. Art. XV. All the articles of the Mining Code in force that oppose the present law, are abolished.

TRANSITORY DISPOSITION.

Art. XVI. The Executive shall appoint one or several persons commissioned to revise and reform the Mining Code, who shall receive the remuneration that

shall be fixed, once their work is finished and approved.

(D. O. March 14, 1913.)

(From the American Consulate, Montevideo, Uruguay.)