Joseph McKenna

“ Counsel's contention confounds the difference and insists that it is established by the rulings in prior cases in the department that a mine is opened or improved by an 'actual excavation of the earth, whether by open cut or tunnel, so as to expose a vein of coal, which is the coal mine.' And this, it is contended, has become a principle of decision and has the insistent quality of stare decisis-commanding a specific conclusion, superseding by its automatism any discretionary function in the land officers. ”

“ In other words, the Land Office is like any other tribunal-its institution and purpose defining and measuring its power, the determining elements being those of fact and law, upon which necessarily judgment must be passed. ”

“ Eight locations were made, all of which were conveyed by the asserted locators to petitioner in March, 1909. Surveys were made of the locations, which surveys were duly examined and filed in the proper land office in Alaska; and in 1909 petitioner paid to the Treasurer of the United States $10 for each acre surveyed, in the aggregate $9,905.74, and made application to the then Secretary of the Interior through the local land office for a patent, tendering due proof of the locations of each applicant. ”