Stephen Johnson Field

“ No motive can be imagined for allowing two or more persons to unite their entries in one survey which does not apply with at least as much force for allowing a single person to unite his entries, adjoining each other, in one survey. ”

“ It will thus be seen that if an adverse claim is made to the mining ground for which a patent is sought, its validity must be determined by a local court, unless it be waived, before a patent can be issued. There would seem, therefore, to be more cogent reasons, in cases where a patent for such ground is relied upon, to maintain the doctrine which we have declared, that it cannot be assailed in a collateral proceeding, than in the case of a patent for agricultural land. ”

“ A limitation is not put upon the sale of the ground located, nor upon the number of locations which may be acquired by purchase, nor upon the number which may be included in a patent. Every interest in lands is the subject of sale and transfer, unless prohibited by statute, and no words allowing it are necessary. In the mining statutes numerous provisions assume and recognize the salable character of one's interest in a mining claim. ”

“ If in issuing a patent its officers took mistaken views of the law, or drew erroneous conclusions from the evidence, or acted from imperfect views of their duty, or even from corrupt motives, a court of law can afford no remedy to a party alleging equity for relief, and even there his complaint cannot be heard unless he connect himself with the original source of title, so as to be able to aver that his rights are injuriously affected by the existence of the patent ”

“ The patent of the United States is the conveyance by which the Nation passes its title to portions of the public domain. For the transfer of that title, the law has made numerous provisions, designating the persons who may acquire it and the terms of its acquisition. That the provisions may be properly carried out, a Land Department, as part of the administrative and executive branch of the government, has been created to supervise all the various proceedings taken to obtain the title, from their commencement to their close. ”

“ A mining claim is a parcel of land containing precious metal in its soil or rock. A location is the act of appropriating such parcel, according to certain established rules. It usually consists in placing on the ground, in a conspicuous positon, a notice setting forth the name of the locator, the fact that it is taken or located, with the requisite description of the extent and boundaries of the parcel, according to the local customs, or, since the statute of 1872, according to the provisions of that act. ”

“ The case of the defendants rests on the correctness of their assertion that a patent cannot issue for a mining claim which embraces over one hundred and sixty acres. Assuming that the words "more or less," accompanying the statement of the acres contained in the claim, are to be disregarded, and that the patent is construed as for one hundred and sixty-four acres and a fraction of an acre, there is nothing in the acts of Congress which prohibits the issue of a patent for that amount. They are silent as to the extent to a mining claim. ”

“ The services of an attorney are usually retained when a patent is sought, and the expenses attendant upon the proceeding are in many instances very great. To lessen these as much as possible the practice has been common for miners to consolidate, by conveyance to a single person or an association or company, many contiguous claims into one, for which only one application is made and of which only one survey is had. ”

“ Indeed, successful mining, whether on lode claims or placer claims, can seldom be prosecuted without an amount of capital beyond the means of the individual miner.
These is no force in the suggestion that a separate patent for each location is necessary to insure the required expenditure of labor upon it. The statute of 1872 provides that on each claim subsequently located, until a patent is issued for it, there shall be annually expended in labor or improvements one hundred dollars ”

“ The last position of the court below, that the owner of contiguous locations who seeks a patent must present a separate application for each, and obtain a separate survey, and prove that upon each the required work has been performed, is as untenable as the rulings already considered. The object in allowing patents is to vest the fee in the miner, and thus encourage the construction of permanent works for the development of the mineral resources of the country. ”

“ On the other hand, a patent may be collaterally impeached in any action, and its operation as a conveyance defeated, by showing that the department had no jurisdiction to dispose of the lands; that is, that the law did not provide for selling them, or that they had been reserved from sale or dedicated to special purposes, or had been previously transferred to others. In establishing any of these particulars the judgment of the department upon matters properly before it is not assailed, nor is the regularity of its proceedings called into question ”

“ There the plaintiff brought an action upon an patent of North Carolina, issued in 1800, for five thousand acres. The defendants relied upon a prior patent of the State for twenty-five thousand acres, issued in 1795 to one Sevier, through whom they claimed. Each patent embraced the lands in controversy, and they were situated in that portion of Tennessee ceded to the United States by North Carolina. On the trial it was contended that the elder patent was void on its face because it covered more than five thousand acres, the limit prescribed for a single entry by the laws of that State. ”

“ Every one, at all familiar with our mineral regions, knows that the great majority of claims, whether on lodes or on placers, can be worked advantageously only by a combination among the miners, or by a consolidation of their claims through incorporated companies. ”

“ Water is essential for the working of mines, and in many instances can be obtained only from great distances, by means of canals, flumes, and aqueducts, requiring for their construction enormous expenditures of money, entirely beyond the means of a single individual. ”

“ The statutes provide numerous guards against the evasion of their provisions by parties seeking a mining patent, and afford an opportunity to persons in the neighborhood of the claim to come forward and present any objections they may have to the granting of the patent desired. ”

“ The objection to the patent by reason of its embracing over five thousand acres was accordingly overruled.
By a provision of the mining act of 1870, still in force, two or more persons, or association of persons, having contiguous claims of any size, are allowed to make a joint entry thereof. Rev.Stat., sect. 2330. If one individual should acquire all such contiguous claims by purchase, no sound reason can be suggested why he should not be equally entitled to enter them all by one entry as when they were held by the original parties. ”

“ The court is of opinion that, under a sound construt ion of this law, entries, which might be joined in one survey, if remaining the property of two or more person, may be joined, though they become the property of a single person. ”

“ Patents, we are informed, for mining ground of the value of many millions of dollars, have been issued upon consolidated claims, nearly all of which would be invalidated if the positions assumed by the defendants could be sustained. ”