Sec. 12. The holder of any lease or permit issued under the provisions of sections 9 to 12, inclusive, of this Act shall have the right to use so much of the surface of unappropriated and unentered public lands not a part of his lease, not exceeding eighty acres in area, as may be determined by the Secretary to be necessary or convenient for the extraction, treatment, and removal of the mineral deposits, but this provision shall not be applicable to national forest lands.
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## Sec. 12 The holder of any lease or permit issued under the provisions of sections 9 to 12, inclusive, of this Act shall have the right to use so much of the surface of unappropriated and unentered public lands not a part of his lease, not exceeding eighty acres in area, as may be determined by the Secretary to be necessary or convenient for the extraction, treatment, and removal of the mineral deposits, but this provision shall not be applicable to national forest lands. **[**[30 U.S.C. 214](/us/usc/t30/s214)**]** **[**Sec. 13.4 That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized, and directed, under such necessary and proper rules and regulations as he may prescribe, to grant to any applicant qualified under this Act a prospecting permit, which shall give the exclusive right, for a period not exceeding two years, to prospect for oil or gas upon not to exceed two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of land wherein such deposits belong to the United States and are not within any known geological structure of a producing oil or gas field upon condition that the permittee shall begin drilling operations within six months from the date of the permit, and shall, within one year from and after the date of permit, drill one or more wells for oil or gas to a depth of not less than five hundred feet each, unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, and shall, within two years from date of the permit, drill for oil or gas to an aggregate depth of not less than two thousand feet unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered: *Provided, *That said application was filed ninety days prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act.
It being the intention of Congress that there shall be no discrimination as between applicants for prospecting permits, the Secretary of the Interior is directed, in every case where one or more permits have been issued, to issue permits to all other applicants for prospective permits on the same structure, even though one or more of the permittees has developed the said structure into a producing oil or gas field, if said application for permit was filed prior to the development of such structure into a producing oil or gas field, and said applicant has otherwise complied with the law: *Provided further, *That when such permit is issued upon any structure after discovery, the royalty to be paid upon the preferential lease provided for in section 14 hereof shall be 10 per centum in amount or value of the production and the annual payment of a rental as provided in said section 14.
No prospecting permit shall be granted upon any application filed after ninety days prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act. The Secretary of the Interior may, if he shall find that the permittee has been unable with the exercise of diligence to test the land in the time granted by the permit, extend any such permit for such time, not exceeding two years, and upon such conditions as he shall prescribe: *Provided, *That all permits outstanding on the effective date of this amendatory Act, which on said date shall not be subject to cancelation for violation of the law or operating regulations and which have theretofore been extended by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be, and the same are hereby, extended until December 31, 1937, subject to the applicable conditions of such prior extensions: *Provided further, *That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized, to extend for an additional period of not to exceed one year any permit on which diligence has been exercised or on which drilling or prospecting has been suspended at the direction of the Secretary during the extension period hereby granted, but no extension of any permit beyond December 31, 1938, shall be granted under authority of this Act, or any other Act.
Whether the lands sought in any such application and permit are surveyed or unsurveyed the applicant shall, prior to filing his application for permit, locate such lands in a reasonably compact form and according to the legal subdivisions of the public-land surveys if the land be surveyed; and in an approximately square or rectangular tract if the land be an unsurveyed tract, the length of which shall not exceed two and one-half times its width, and if he shall cause to be erected upon the land for which a permit is sought a monument not less than four feet high, at some conspicuous place thereon, and shall post a notice in writing on or near said monument, stating that an application for permit will be made within thirty days after date of posting said notice, the name of the applicant, the date of the notice, and such a general description of the land to be covered by such permit by reference to courses and distances from such monument and such other natural objects and permanent monuments as will reasonably identify the land, stating the amount thereof in acres, he shall during the period of thirty days following such marking and posting, be entitled to a preference right over others to a permit for the land so identified.
The applicant shall, within ninety days after receiving a permit, mark each of the corners of the tract described in the permit upon the ground with substantial monuments, so that the boundaries can be readily traced on the ground, and shall post in a conspicuous place upon the lands a notice that such permit has been granted and a description of the lands covered thereby: *Provided further, *That in the Territory of Alaska prospecting permits not more than five in number may be granted to any qualified applicant for periods not exceeding four years, actual drilling operations shall begin within two years from date of permit, and oil and gas wells shall be drilled to a depth of not less than five hundred feet, unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, within three years from date of the permit and to an aggregate depth of not less than two thousand feet unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, within four years from date of permit: *Provided further, *That in said Territory the applicant shall have a preference right over others to a permit for land identified by temporary monuments and notice posted on or near the same for six months following such marking and posting, and upon receiving a permit he shall mark the corners of the tract described in the permit upon the ground with substantial monuments within one year after receiving such permit: *Provided further, *That any person holding a permit to prospect for oil or gas which shall not be subject to cancellation for violation of the law or operating regulations or which shall have been extended under the authority of this or any other Act, in force on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act, or for which timely and acceptable application for extension shall have been filed prior to said date, shall have the right prior to the termination of such permit to exchange the same for a lease to the area described in the permit without proof of discovery, at a royalty of not less than 12½ per centum or value of the production, to be determined by the Secretary of the Interior by general rule and under such other conditions as are fixed in section 17 of this Act: *Provided further, *That no such lease shall be subject to the acreage limitations of section 27 of this Act, as amended, until one year after the discovery of valuable deposits of oil or gas thereon: *Provided further, *That any application for any prospecting permit filed after ninety days prior to the effective date of this amendatory Act shall be considered as an application for lease under section 17 hereof: *And provided further, *That upon leases so granted in lieu of existing permits or granted to applicants for permits, no rentals shall be payable for the first two lease years, unless valuable deposits of oil or gas are sooner discovered within the boundaries of such lease.4Section is omitted from United States Code as having expired by its own terms.**]**
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Sec. 12
The holder of any lease or permit issued under the provisions of sections 9 to 12, inclusive, of this Act shall have the right to use so much of the surface of unappropriated and unentered public lands not a part of his lease, not exceeding eighty acres in area, as may be determined by the Secretary to be necessary or convenient for the extraction, treatment, and removal of the mineral deposits, but this provision shall not be applicable to national forest lands.
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