Samuel Freeman Miller

“ The plaintiff asserted title to the land in controversy under a patent from the State of California, and the defendant under patents from the United States. The title of California rests upon the act of Congress granting that State the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of every township for school purposes, and that of defendant on the acts of Congress concerning the possession and sale of the mineral lands. ”

“ The proviso to the third section is also relied upon as indicative of the purpose of Congress in regard to the mineral lands of California. That section contains the authority under which the surveyor-general is to act in surveying the public lands in that State, and after investing him with the powers conferred on other surveyors-heneral, and prescribing some specific directions for the survey of private land-claims, it is 'Provided, that none other than township lines shall be surveyed where the lands are mineral, or are deemed unfit for cultivation ”

“ The purpose of these provisions was undoubtedly to reserve these lands, so much more valuable than ordinary public lands, and the nature of which suggested a policy different from other lands in their disposal, for such measures in this respect as the more matured wisdom of that body, which by the Constitution is authorized to dispose of the territory or other property of the United States, should after-wards devise. ”

“ That it is mineral land, and that the grant of school lands to the State does not cover any mineral land.
2. That by virtue of the seventh section such settlement and cultivation had been made on the land before the survey was made, as to take it out of the grant, and remit the State to the selection of other public land in lieu of this. ”