Stephen Johnson Field

“ The exceptions of mineral lands from preemption and settlement, and from grants to states for universities and schools, for the construction of public buildings, and in aid of railroads and other works of internal improvement, are not held to exclude all lands in which minerals may be found, but only those where the mineral is in sufficient quantity to add to their richness, and to justify expenditure for its extraction, and known to be so at the date of the grant. ”

“ If mineral patents will not be issued unless the mineral exist in sufficient quantity to render the land more valuable for mining than for other purposes, which can only be known by development or exploration, it should follow that the land may be patented for other purposes if that fact does not appear. ”

“ The land department appears to have adopted a rule that if the land is worth more for agriculture than mining it is not mineral land, although it may contain some measure of gold or silver; and the bill in this case is drawn on that theory of the law. ”

“ Such lands of the public domain, both surveyed and unsurveyed, were thereby declared to be free and open to exploration and occupation by all citizens of the United States, and those who had declared their intention to become citizens, subject to such regulations as might be prescribed by law, and to the local customs and rules of miners in mining districts, so far as they were not in conflict with the laws of the United States. ”

“ But the court said. 'To constitute the exemption contemplated by the pre-emption act, under the head of 'Known Mines,' there should be upon the land ascertained coal deposits of such an extent and value as to make the land more valuable to be worked as a coal mine, under the conditions existing at the time, than for merely agricultural purposes. The circumstance that there are surface indications of the existence of veins of coal does not constitute a mine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any narrower construction would operate to reserve from the uses of agriculture large tracts of land which are practically useless for any other purpose, and we cannot think this was the intention of congress.' In Merrill v. ”