Henry Billings Brown

Name: Northern Pacific Railway Company v. Soderberg — Opinion of the Court
Author: Henry Billings Brown

Summary

“Northern Pacific Railway Company v. Soderberg — Opinion of the Court”, is a work by Henry Billings Brown. It explores elements such as mineral, grant and the United States.

Quotes from Northern Pacific Railway Company v… (Henry Billings Brown)

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ Thus, the scientific division of all matter into the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom would be absurd as applied to a grant of lands, since all lands belong to the mineral kingdom, and therefore could not be excepted from the grant without being destructive of it. Upon the other hand, a definition which would confine it to the precious metals-gold and silver-would so limit its application as to destroy at once half the value of the exception. Equally subversive of the grant would be the definition of minerals found in the Century Dictionary ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ While intrinsically the precious metals are the more valuable, in the aggregate, the nonprecious metals have probably contributed as much or more to the general wealth of the country.
A division of lands into agricultural and mineral would also be a most uncertain guide to a proper construction of the word 'mineral,' since most of the lands included in the limits of this grant are neither one nor the other, but desert or rocky land, of no present value for agriculture, and of little value for their mineral deposits. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ In construing this grant we must not overlook the general principle announced in many cases in this court, that grants from the sovereign should receive a strict construction,-a construction which shall support the claim of the government rather than that of the individual. Nothing passes by implication, and unless the language of the grant be clear and explicit as to the property conveyed, that construction will be adopted which favors the sovereign rather than the grantee. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ In the earlier grants of Congress in aid of railroads there was generally no reservation of mineral lands, but in the grants subsequent to 1860, to the Lake Superior and Pacific roads, through unsurveyed and almost unknown territories, a reservation was invariably made of lands suspected of being rich in metals. It is quite true that, had it not been for the actual or suspected presence of these metals, Congress might not have deemed it worth while to reserve the nonmetallic mineral lands ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ The rulings of the English courts have, with a possible exception in some earlier cases, adopted the construction that valuable stone passed under the definition of minerais. Said Baron Parke in Rosse v. Wainman, 14 Mees. & W. 859, 872: The term 'minerals' used in an act of Parliament, reserving to the lord all mines and minerals, though more frequently applied to substances containing metals, in its proper sense includes all fossil bodies or matters dug out of mines; and Dr. Johnson says that all metals are minerals, but all minerals are not metals ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ Beds of stone, which may be dug by winning or quarrying, are therefore properly minerals, and so we think they must be held to be in the clause in question, bearing in mind that the object of the act was to give the surface for cultivation to the commoners and to leave in the lord what it did not take away for that purpose. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ The fact that no such limits were imposed on veins of coal or other minerals or metals indicates, not that the act was intended to be confined to the minerals enumerated in § 2, since that would be a clear restriction upon the words 'valuable mineral deposits' in the 1st section, but that these particular metals stood in special need of limitation and protection. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Northern Pacific Railway Company v…

“ Another act having a more important bearing is that of May 10, 1872 (17 Stat. at L. 91, chap. 152) , 'to promote the development of the mining resources of the United States,' and providing in the 1st section that 'all valuable mineral deposits' in public lands should be open to exploration and purchase, according to the local customs or rules of miners. This section is an obvious extension of § 1 of the act of 1866, above cited, by substituting the words 'valuable mineral deposits in lands' for the words 'mineral lands,' as used in the prior act. ”

Henry Billings Brown

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