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. Long before patents were allowed-indeed, from the earliest period in which mining for gold and silver was pursued as a business-miners were in the habit of consolidating adjoining claims, whether they consisted of one or more original locations, into one, for convenience and economy in working them. It was therefore very natural, when patents were allowed, that the practice of presenting a single application with one survey of the whole tract should prevail. It was at the outset, and has ever since been approved by the department, and its propriety has never before been questioned. 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. It was urged on the argument that a patent for each location was required to prevent a monopoly of mining groundto prevent, to use the language of counsel, the public domain. from being "monopolized by speculators." The law limiting the extent of mining lands which an individual may locate has provided, so far as it was deemed wise, against an accumulation of them in one person's hands. It could not have prohibited the sale of the location of an individual without imposing a restriction injurious to his interests, and in many instances destructive of the whole value of his claim. 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. Often, too, for the development of claims, streams must be turned from their beds, dams built, shafts sunk at great depth, and flumes constructed to carry away the debris of the mine. 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. There is no force in the suggestion that a separate patent for each location is necessary to insure the required expendi ture 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; and on claims previously located an an. nual expenditure of ten dollars for each one hundred feet in length along the vein; but where such claims are held "in common," the expenditure may be upon any one claim. As these provisions relate to expenditures before a patent is issued, proof of them will be a matter for consideration when application for the patent is made. It is not preceived in what way this proof can be changed or the requirement affected, whether the application be for a patent for one claim or for several claims held in common. Labor and improvements, within the meaning of the statute, are deemed to have been had on a mining claim, whether it consists of one location or several, when the labor is performed or the improvements are made for its development, that is, to facilitate the extraction of the metals it may contain, though in fact such labor and improvements may be on ground which originally constituted only one of the locations, as in sinking a shaft, or be at a distance from the claim itself, as where the labor is performed for the turning of a stream or the introduction of water, or where the improvement consists in the construction of a flume to carry off the debris or waste material. It would be absurd to require a shaft to be sunk on each location in a consolidated claim, when one shaft would suffice for all the locations; and yet that is seriously argued by counsel, and must be maintained to uphold the judgment below. 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. By Sects. 6 and 7 of the act of 1872, which constitute Sects. 2325 and 2326 of the Revised Statutes, the procedure which a party seeking a patent, whether an individual or an association or a corporation, must follow is prescribed: 1st. The party must file an application in the proper land office under oath, showing a compliance with the law, together with a plat and the field notes of the claim, or "claims in common," made by or under the direction of the Surveyor-General of the United States, showing the boundaries of the claim or claims, which must be distinctly marked by monuments on the ground. 2d. Previously, however, to the filing of the application, the claimant must post a copy of the plat, with a notice of his intended application, in a conspicuous place on the land embraced in it, and file an affidavit of at least two persons that such notice has been duly posted with a copy of the notice in the land office. 3d. When such application, plat, field notes, notice and affidavits have been filed, the register of the land office is required to publish a notice of the application for the period of sixty days, in a newspaper to be designated by him, nearest to the claim, and post such notice in his office for the same period. 4th. The claimant, at the time of filing his application, or at any time thereafter within sixty days, is required to file with the register a certificate of the United States SurveyorGeneral, that five hundred dollars' worth of labor has been expended, or improvements to that amount have been made upon the claim by himself or grantors; that the plat is correct, with such further description, by reference to natural objects or permanent monuments, as shall identify the claim, and furnish an accurate description to be incorporated in the patent. 5th. At the expiration of sixty days the claimant is required to file his affidavit showing that the plat and notice have been posted in a conspicuous place on the claim during the period of publication. If no adverse claim shall have been filed with the register and receiver of the proper land office within the sixty days of publication, it is then to be assumed that the applicant is entitled to a patent upon the pay ment to the proper officer of five dollars per acre, and that no adverse claim exists. 6th. The statute then proceeds to declare that if an adverse claim is filed during the period of publication, it must be upon the oath of the party making it, and must show the nature, boundaries and extent of such adverse claim; and all proceedings, except the publication of the notice and the making and filing of the affidavit, shall be thereupon stayed until the controversy shall have been settled by a decision of a court of competent jurisdiction or the adverse claim waived. And it is made the duty of the adverse claimant, within thirty days after filing his claim, to commence proceedings in a court of competent jurisdiction to determine the question of the right of possession, and to prosecute the same with reasonable diligence to final judgment; and a failure to do so is to be deemed a waiver of his adverse claim. After judgment has been rendered in such proceedings, the party entitled to the possession of the claim, or any portion of it, may file a certified copy of the judgment roll with the register of the land office, together with a certificate of the Surveyor-General that the requisite amount of labor has been expended or improvements made thereon, and the description required in other cases, and must pay to the receiver five dollars an acre for his claim, together with the proper fees; and then the whole proceedings and the judgment roll are to be certified by the register to the commissioner of the general land office, and a patent thereupon issued for the claim, or such portion thereof as the applicant, by the decision of the court, shall appear to be entitled to. 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 can not be assailed in a collateral proceeding, than in the case of a patent for agricultural land. But it is unnecessary to pursue the subject further. The judgment of the court below must be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial; and it is so ordered. Mr. Justice MILLER and Mr. Justice HARLAN dissented. NOTE.-Smelting Company v. Ray, erior to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado, was argued at the same time as the preceding case, and by the same counsel for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. THOMAS M. PATTERSON for the defendants in error. Mr. Justice FIELD remarked that, as it presented the same questions there determined, the judgment of the court below must be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial. Mr. Justice MILLER and Mr. Justice HARLAN dissented. 1. Conclusiveness and scope of grant in patent: Boggs v. Merced M. Co., 10 M. R. 334. 2. Action of land department in issuing patent is conclusive as to legal; title: Silver Bow Co. v. Clarke, 5 Pac. 570. 3. Condition in patent not authorized by law is void: Clary v. Hazlett, 7 Pac. 701; Talbott v. King, 9 Id. 434; Silver Bow Co. v. Clarke, 5 Id. 570 Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392. 4. Placer patent carries title to surface as well as to land beneath surface: Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392. 5. A receiver's receipt passes title: Id. 6. It is not ground to set aside patent that it should not have been issued to patentee. Plaintiff must show better right in himself: Sparks v. Pierce, 115 U. S., 408. 7. Where a claim was conveyed to applicant who gave bond to make title to grantor after patent obtained, the penalty was not to be considered as liquidated damages: Turck v. Marshall M. Co., 5 Pac. 838; 8 Colo. 113. 8. Prior patentee need not adverse subsequent application: Mantle v. Noyes, 5 Pac. 856. 9. Conflict of lode and placer: Id. 10. It is only when description is so indefinite that identity of ground can not be determined that the grant is to be held void for uncertainty: Cullacott v. Cash M. Co., 6 Pac. 211; 8 Colo. 179. 11. Respective rights of lode patent and town site patent considered: Talbott v. King, 9 Pac. 434. 12. A patent proves of itself a valid location: Id. 13. All adverse claims are barred by issuance of a patent: Raunheim v. Dahl, 9 Pac. 892; Wolfley v. Lebanon Co., 13 M. R. 14. A placer patent conveys title to a lode not then known to exist: Raunheim v. Dahl, 9 Pac. 892; Montana Copper Co. v. Dahl, 9 Pac. 894; Contra as to known lodes: Reynolds v. Iron Silver Co., 116 U. S. 687. 15. Declaring party in the wrong to hold as trustee: Rose v. Richmond Co., 17 Nev. 26. |