Portal:Supreme Court of the United States

“ In the legislation of Congress the term 'mineral lands' is not confined to railroad land grants. It occurs in the mining laws, in an excepting clause in the homestead law, and in like clauses in other public-land laws. Evidently it has the same meaning in all. The administration of these laws has rested with the Land Department, and therefore its course of action in respect of oil-bearing lands-whether it has held them to be mineral or otherwise-requires to be noticed. ”

“ It may be laid down as a general rule that, in the absence of some specific provision to the contrary in respect to any particular grant of public land, its administration falls wholly and absolutely within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior. It is not necessary that with each grant there shall go a direction that its administration shall be under the authority of the Land Department. ”

“ The exception would be as broad as the grant, and be void as an exception. Is it any the less so, in this class of cases, as to a part? . . . There must be some point in time when the character of the land must be finally determined; and, for the interest of all concerned, there can be no better point to determine this question than at the time of issuing the patent.' Again (p. 208) : 'A patent upon its face should either grant or not grant. ”

“ The general statutes of Congress in respect to homestead, pre-emption, and town-site locations provide that they should be made upon lands that are nonmineral, and in approving any such entry and issuing a patent therefor could it be tolerated for a moment that the Land Department might limit the grant and qualify the title by a stipulation that if thereafter mineral should be discovered the title should fail? ”

“ Of course, if the land officers are induced by false proofs to issue a patent for mineral lands under a nonmineral-land law, or if they issue such a patent fraudulently or through a mere inadvertence, a bill in equity, on the part of the government, will lie to annul the patent and regain the title, or a mineral claimant who then had acquired such rights in the land as to entitle him to protection may maintain a bill to have the patentee declared a trustee for him ”

“ Notwithstanding these persuasive considerations for now regarding petroleum lands as mineral lands within the meaning of the excepting clause in the granting act, we are asked to give effect to the strictly scientific view that petroleum is a resultant of the decomposition of organic matter under certain conditions of temperature and pressure, and therefore is not a mineral. As we understand it, scientists are not in full accord upon this point, some ascribing to petroleum an inorganic origin. ”

“ If the reservation of mineral lands as expressed in the patent is void, then is the patent, upon a collateral attack, a conclusive and official declaration that the land is agricultural, and that all the requirements preliminary to the issuance of the patent have been complied with? ”

“ In the original decision the Secretary of the Interior held that the word 'mineral' embraced only 'the more precious metals,' such as 'gold, silver, cinnabar, etc.,' but on the rehearing this view was rejected and the prior rulings holding petroleum to be a mineral were reaffirmed and applied, the railroad company's application for a patent being denied. ”

“ After the Secretary of the Interior has decided that any particular lands are not mineral, and has issued a patent therefor, the title is not liable to be defeated by the subsequent discovery of minerals. ”

“ We first notice a contention advanced on the part of the mineral claimants, to the effect that the grant to the railroad company was merely a gift from the United States, and should be construed and applied accordingly. The granting act not only does not support the contention, but refutes it. ”

“ According to the statute relating to placer mining claims the patent, save in an instance not material here, should contain an exception of any vein or lodeknown to exist within the boundaries of the claim at the date of the application for patent, but in the early patents the exception was so stated that it embraced any vein or lode claimed or known to exist at the date of the patent. ”

“ Besides, there was an exclusion of all sections and parts of sections 'granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, or pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of' when the line of the road should be definitely located, and this was followed by a similar provision for lieu lands. The two exclusions and the indemnity provisions made it practically imperative that there be an authoritative identification of the lands passing under the grant and of those excluded, for otherwise great uncertainty in titles, conflicting claims, and vexatious litigation would be inevitable. ”

“ Finally, the Commissioner concluded that 'the difficulty' could 'be avoided' by directing the Surveyor General to proceed, and in approving the survey to add to his certificate of approval 'the special reservation stipulated by the statute, but not to embrace mineral land.' Being instructed accordingly, the Surveyor General, after the field notes and plat of the survey were completed, indorsed upon the field notes a mere approval, and upon the plat an approval qualified by the words, 'subject to the conditions and limitations' of the statute, naming it. ”

“ He must abide the action of those whose duty and responsibility are fixed by law. Neither can the land officers enter into any agreement upon the subject. They are not principals, but agents of the law, and must heed only its will. ”

“ The temptation to such exploration would be according to the suspected extent of the minerals, and being thus subject to indiscriminate invasion, the land would be to one having the title poor and valueless, just in proportion to the supposed richness and abundance of its products. ”

“ The various mining circulars, instructions, and decisions, as published from time to time, show that the matter probably was not considered prior to the first mining circular, July 15, 1873, but that since then the Department has regarded petroleum as a mineral, and has treated lands chiefly valuable therefor as mineral lands. [1] With a single exception, the rulings have been uniform, and lands of great value have passed into private ownership under them. The single exception is the case of Re Union Oil Co. ”

“ Three years had passed since the filing of the map, and in the meantime the situation had been complicated by a withdrawal of the adjacent lands, a revocation of the withdrawal, and a suspension of the revoking order. The validity of the route shown on the map and of the withdrawal had been the subject of differing opinions, and some of the lands had come to be occupied by settlers, whose status was uncertain in view of the withdrawal. See 16 Ops. Atty. Gen. 80. As reported to the Senate by one of its committees, the resolution was in its present form without the saving clause. ”

“ If, as suggested by counsel, when the Secretary of the Interior has under consideration a list of lands to be patented to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, it is shown that part of said lands contain minerals of gold and silver, discovered since the company's location of its road opposite thereto, he would not perform his duty, stated in Knight v. ”

“ Upon the filing of lists with such affidavits attached, it is made the duty of registers and receivers to certify to the correctness of the selections in the particulars mentioned and in other respects. ”

“ The defendant claimed under the town-site patent and a deed of release and quitclaim from the probate judge, who was the town-site trustee, and the plaintiff claimed under a later patent for a mining claim located upon part of the town site, and based upon an actual discovery of a valuable vein of gold after the issue of the town-site patent. ”