rejected, or where the claimant fails to present his claim within the time specified in the act.1 124. Grants of the second class, commonly called "floats."-Do the foregoing rules apply to cases falling within the second class of grants, commonly called "floats"-for example, a grant of ten square leagues within claimed exterior boundaries of one hundred square leagues. This was the case of the Mariposa grant in California, claimed by and ultimately confirmed to General John C. Fremont. The decisions heretofore quoted and the rules enunciated applied to conditions antedating the enactment of general mining laws. Prior to July 26, 1866, no mineral lands, even on the unquestioned public domain, could be acquired in absolute private ownership. The various acts passed from 1851 to 1891 regulating the settlement of private land claims made no mention of minerals or mineral lands. The California act, by legislative intendment, as we have heretofore shown, reserved these claimed lands from pre-emption and homestead settlement. The acts conferring authority upon surveyors-general in the territories to examine and report upon Mexican grants contained a provision to the effect that "until "final action of congress on such claims, all lands cov"ered thereby shall be reserved from sale or other disposition by the government.” 2 66 Would these inhibitions imply that lands lying within the claimed exterior boundaries of a float were not open Botiller v. Dominguez, 130 U. S. 238, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 525; United States v. Fossat, 21 How. 446. As will be hereafter noted, the act of March 3, 1891, repealed the clause as to claimed grants in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming. The status of those grants after that date were somewhat different. The rule here stated is, we think, the correct one as to all Mexican grants prior to March 3, 1891. to exploration and purchase, as lands containing gold and silver? Confessedly, titles to these minerals could not have been obtained under the Mexican government by proceedings other than under the mining ordinances; and it can be plausibly asserted that the United States was under no legal or equitable obligation to confer upon these grantees something more than they could have acquired had there been no change in the paramount proprietorship. And yet we fail to see anything in the adjudicated cases which would not reserve the entire claimed tract from occupation and purchase under the mining laws until such time as the boundaries are finally fixed and the surplus becomes public domain. The supreme court of the United States thus distinguishes this class of grants: "It is in the option of the government, not of the grantee, to locate the quantity granted; and, of course, "a grant by the government of any part of the territory "contained within the outside limits of the grant only "reduces by so much the area within which the original "grantee's proper quantity may be located. If the gov"ernment has the right to say where it shall be located, "it certainly has the right to say where it shall not be "located; and if it sells land to a third person at a place "within the general territory of the original grant, it "is equivalent to saying that the quantity due to the "original grantee is not to be located there. In other "words, if the territory comprehended in the outside "limits and bounds of a Mexican grant contains eighty "leagues, and the quantity granted is only ten leagues, "the government may dispose of seventy leagues with"out doing any wrong to the original grantee."1 The case was that of a railroad grant evidenced by patent for a section of land within a float. Suit was brought to vacate the patent on the ground that the land 1United States v. McLaughlin, 127 U. S. 428, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1177. patented was at the time of the patent embraced within the exterior boundaries of a claimed Mexican grant, then sub judice, and that therefore the patent was void, relying upon the case of Newhall v. Sanger,1 which involved precisely the same grant, although, as presented for the consideration of the supreme court in that case, it appeared to be a grant by specific boundaries, and not a float. The case of United States v. McLaughlin established the doctrine that the government might, by direct congressional grant, dispose of lands within a float so long as sufficient remained to satisfy the call of the grant for quantity. This rule was subsequently reannounced, and followed in later cases.2 But, as we understand the McLaughlin case, the court did not intend to infer that any such lands were subject to appropriation under general laws. In fact, the court says: "It may be that the land office might properly sus"pend ordinary operations in the disposal of lands "within the territory indicated; and in that sense they might not be considered as public lands." 66 We think a review of the authorities justifies the conclusion that floats were not exceptions to the general doctrine that Mexican grants while sub judice were to the extent of their claimed exterior boundaries, as defined in the expediente, withdrawn from exploration and purchase under the general mining laws; and this is true wheresoever within the ceded territory these grants were found prior to the passage of the act of March 3, 1891. Under this act a different policy was inaugurated. It 192 U. S. 761. 'Carr v. Quigley, 149 U. S. 652, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 961; Wis. Cent. R. R. Co. v. Forsythe, 159 U. S. 48, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1020; United States v. Gurtner, 38 Fed. 1; Grant v. Oliver, 91 Cal. 158, 27 Pac. 596, 598. repealed the provisions of the act of July 22, 1854, which placed all lands within this class of claimed grants in a state of reservation. By this repeal, lands which were in fact public lands belonging to the United States, although within the claimed limits of a Mexican grant, became open to entry and sale under the laws of the United States.1 This may be illustrated. A mining location could not have been made within the claimed limits of a Mexican grant prior to March 3, 1891, so long as such grant was sub judice. Since that date such a location could be made; and if it is ultimately determined that the asserted claim to the grant was mineral, or did not embrace within its limits as finally confirmed the locus of the mining claim, the mining location would be valid. In other words, a prospector might locate a mining claim within the limits of a claimed grant which was sub judice, taking his chances that the grant would either not be confirmed or would not embrace his location.2 125. Grants confirmed under the California act.As to grants confirmed finally, with boundaries fixed by action of the judicial tribunals, under the California act, such grants occupy the status of patented lands, and will be so considered. A right to a patent is equivalent to a patent issued. The question as to whether mines of the precious 'Lockhardt v. Johnson, 181 U. S. 516, 521, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 665; Lockhart v. Wills, 9 N. Mex. 344, 54 Pac. 336; Lockhart v. Leeds, 63 Pac. 48. 2 Lockhardt v. Johnson, 181 U. S. 516, 525. Previous to this decision the land department held that all such lands remained in a state of reservation until the grant was finally disposed of, and that no rights under the public land laws could be acquired within the claimed limits of a grant so long as it remained sub judice. Tumacacori and Calabazas Grant, 16 L. D. 408, 423; In re Farr, 24 L. D. 1; Baca Float No. 3, 30 L. D. 497; In re Katherine Davis, Id. 220. metals passed by confirmation to a grantee of a Mexican grant has never been in terms judicially determined by the supreme court of the United States. In the case of the Mariposa grant,1 General Fremont's right to confirmation was assailed upon the ground that the grant embraced mines of gold or silver. The supreme court of the United States confirmed the grant, holding that the only question before it was the validity of the title; that, under the mining laws of Spain and Mexico, the discovery of a mine did not destroy the title of the individual to the land granted; that whether there were any mines on the grant in question, and, if there were, what were the rights of sovereignty in them, were questions which must be decided in another form of proceeding, and were not subjected to the jurisdiction of the commissioners or the court by the act of 1851. But in the later case of the New Almaden quicksilver mine,2 a direct application for confirmation of a mining title was made; and the same court, while denying the validity of the asserted right, held that rights to mines acquired from Spain and Mexico prior to the cession were interests in land, and as such were subject to the jurisdiction of the commissioners. The Fremont case was not mentioned by the court, although in the court below (Judge Hoffman), sustaining the jurisdiction, held that the rule announced by him was not in conflict with the Fremont case, the only question there being the validity of the grant. After the patent was issued to Fremont, the question arose in the California courts as to whether the minerals of gold and silver discovered within the grant passed to the confirmee under the patent, and the supreme court of that state thus announced its conclusions: Fremont v. United States, 17 How. 442, 476. |