Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

a quarter section of land covered by official mining surveys in the Grass Valley region of the latter state, in which locality the California case arose.

[blocks in formation]

A comparison of this figure with the one illustrative of the Colorado rule, shown on page 664, illustrates the radical difference between the two doctrines. The irregularly shaped surfaces shown in the California illustration are accounted for by patenting a number of claims in one group, showing only the exterior lines of the composite, a practice at one time followed by the land department. Under the existing rules, group surveys preserve the interior lines of all individual locations embraced therein.

We are convinced that we are justified in adopting the rule as expounded by the courts of Arizona and California in preference to Hall v. Equator, Branagan v. Dulaney, and the other Colorado cases. Not because more courts have decided one way than another, but for the reason that we believe that the logic and reasoning of the former cases are in line with the rules of construction applied by the supreme court of the United States to the act of 1872 in

other instances, and that the tendency of modern decisions is to recognize the controlling force of surface boundaries. Ever since the decision in the Flagstaff case, the supreme court of the United States has pursued the central idea of referring all rights in lode claims accruing under the act of 1872 to apex and exterior surface lines.

We are impressed with the belief that there is no middle ground between the Colorado and Arizona-California. doctrines.

We therefore conclude that a subsequent locator has no right to invade the territory covered by a senior valid subsisting location, or to penetrate within vertical bounding planes drawn through its surface boundaries, except for the single purpose specified in the mining laws, and that is, in the lawful pursuit of a vein on its downward course, the apex of which is properly embraced within the junior location.

The practice of the land department in issuing conflicting junior patents with clauses of exemption and reservation, will be discussed when we consider. the subject of patents and the proceedings by which they are obtained.

3 6105 06 086 816 8

ITY LAW LIBRARY

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »