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in many instances without the investigation and consideration which the public interest requires; but if that has been done without fraud, though unadvisedly by officers of the Government charged with the duty of supervising and attending to the preparation and issue of such patents, the consequence must be borne by the Government until by further legislation a stricter regard to their duties in that respect can be enforced upon them."

Of the decision in that case it was concisely said in Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U. S. 312, 339: "It is true there was a division of opinion, but that division was only as to the time at which and the means by which the non-mineral character of the land was settled. The minority were of the opinion that the question was settled at the time of the filing of the map of definite location. The majority, relying on the language in the original act of 1864 making the grant, and also on the joint resolution of January 30, 1865, which expressly declared that such grant should not be 'construed as to embrace mineral lands, which in all cases shall be and are reserved exclusively to the United States,' held that the question of mineral or non-mineral was open to consideration up to the time of issuing a patent. But there was no division of opinion as to the question that when the legal title did pass-and it passed unquestionably by the patent-it passed free from the contingency of future discovery of minerals."

The exclusion of mineral lands is not confined to railroad land grants, but appears in the homestead, desertland, timber and stone, and other public-land laws, and the settled course of decision in respect of all of them has been that the character of the land is a question for the Land Department, the same as are the qualifications of the applicant and his performance of the acts upon which the right to receive the title depends, and that when a patent issues it is to be taken, upon a collateral attack, as affording conclusive evidence of the non-mineral character of

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the land and of the regularity of the acts and proceedings resulting in its issue, and, upon a direct attack, as affording such presumptive evidence thereof as to require plain and convincing proof to overcome it. Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636, 641; Steel v. Smelting Co., 106 U. S. 447; Maxwell Land Grant Case, 121 U. S. 325, 379-381; Heath v. Wallace, 138 U. S. 573, 585; Noble v. Union River Logging Railroad, 147 U. S. 165, 174; Burfenning v. Chicago, &c. Railway Co., 163 U. S. 321, 323. In this respect no distinction is recognized between patents issued under railroad land grants and those issued under other laws; nor is there any reason for such a distinction.

Of course, if the land officers are induced by false proofs to issue a patent for mineral lands under a non-mineralland law, or if they issue such a patent fraudulently or through a mere inadvertence, a bill in equity, on the part of the Government, will lie to annul the patent and regain the title, or a mineral claimant who then had acquired such rights in the land as to entitle him to protection may maintain a bill to have the patentee declared a trustee for him; but such a patent is merely voidable, not void, and cannot be successfully attacked by strangers who had no interest in the land at the time the patent was issued and were not prejudiced by it. Colorado Coal & Iron Co. v. United States, 123 U. S. 307, 313; Diamond Coal Co. v. United States, 233 U. S. 236, 239; Germania Iron Co. v. United States, 165 U. S. 379; Duluth & Iron Range Railroad Co. v. Roy, 173 U. S. 587, 590; Hoofnagle v. Anderson, 7 Wheat. 212, 214-5. In the last case this court said, speaking through Chief Justice Marshall: "It is not doubted that a patent appropriates land. Any defects in the preliminary steps, which are required by law, are cured by the patent It is a title from its date, and has always been held conclusive against all those whose rights did not commence previous to its emanation.

If the patent has been issued irregularly, the Government

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may provide means for repealing it; but no individual has a right to annul it, to consider the land as still vacant, and to appropriate it to himself." Of the same import are Cooper v. Roberts, 18 How. 173, 182; Spencer v. Lapsley, 20 How. 264, 273; Ehrhardt v. Hogaboom, 115 U. S. 67, 68. The patent here in question was issued July 10, 1894. Apparently, the Government never brought a bill to have it vacated or annulled, and the time for doing so apparently expired in 1900 or 1901. Acts, March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1093, c. 559; March 2, 1896, 29 Stat. 42, c. 39, § 1; United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 209 U. S. 447, 450. Apparently, also, the prior mineral claimants never sought to have the patentee declared a trustee for them, for it is admitted that they abandoned their locations. The present mineral claimants, who are assailing the patent, claim under relocations made in March, 1909, more than fourteen years after the date of the patent and eight years after the apparent expiration of the time within which the Government could ask that it be vacated or annulled. Plainly, there is no privity between the earlier and later mineral claimants, for the relocations were not made in furtherance of the prior locations but in hostility to them. See Rev. Stat., § 2324.

But, referring to the clause in the patent, "excluding and excepting all mineral lands should any such be found in the tracts aforesaid," the contention is made, first, that the patent shows that the Land Department did not consider or determine whether the lands were mineral or not, and, second, that all lands embraced in the patent which then had been or thereafter should be discovered to be mineral were expressly excepted from the operation of the patent and therefore remained public lands. This contention must be tested in the light of the established practice in the Land Department in such matters and of the office which the granting act intended the patents to perform. The clause relied upon is not peculiar to this

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patent or to those issued under this grant, but appears in all the patents issued from 1866 to 1904 under railroad land grants containing an exclusion of mineral lands. Its first mention in any public document was in the annual report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for 1868. It was there said (pp. 152–154):

"In every case reported from the district land officers of selections made under the acts of 1862 and 1864, for the Pacific Railroad, the agent of the company in the first instance is required to state in his affidavit that the selections are not interdicted, mineral nor reserved lands, and are of the character contemplated by the grant. Upon the filing of lists with such affidavits attached, it is made the duty of registers and receivers to certify to the correctness of the selections in the particulars mentioned, and in other respects. They subsequently undergo scrutiny in this office, are tested by our plats, and by all the data on our files, sufficient time elapsing after the selections are made for the presentation of any objections to the department before final action is taken; and to more effectually guard the matter, there is inserted in all patents issued to said railroad company a clause to the following effect: 'Yet excluding and excepting from the transfer by these presents all mineral lands, should any such be found to exist in the tracts described in this patent, this exception, as required by statute, not extending to coal and iron land.' It has been suggested to this office that the Government should appoint a commission to segregate the mineral from the residue of the public lands; but let anyone consider the vast amount of money expended by practical miners in excavations to test the value of mines, subsequently abandoned as worthless, and some idea may be formed of the time and expense such an undertaking would require, and how little confidence it would be likely to inspire. The regulation of filing affidavits is simply a means of ascertaining the class

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to which a particular tract of land may belong, and although it may not be the best that could be devised, it is the only practical mode that has suggested itself to meet the difficulty of disposing of different classes of land mingled together in such a way as to render it frequently impossible to tell, without great labor and expense, whether a particular subdivision belongs to one or the other class."

In addition to what was thus said respecting the affi-· davits and certificates required and the examination of whatever data were available, regulations were promulgated calling attention, among other things, to the mineralland exclusion in the grants, directing that the lists be carefully and critically examined by the Register and Receiver and mineral lands be excluded therefrom, and prescribing forms of affidavits and certificates reciting, among other things, that the listed lands were non-mineral and of the character contemplated by the grant.' It also appears from the published land decisions that hearings were often had in the local land offices to determine whether lands sought to be listed were mineral or otherwise, and that appeals in such matters were not infrequently heard by the Secretary of the Interior.2 From all this it is manifest that the excepting clause never was intended to take the place of an inquiry into the character of the land or to dispense with a determination of that question, and that its presence in the patents does not at all signify that no inquiry or determination was had. On the contrary, it appears that it was the accustomed practice to exact proofs respecting the character of the

1 See 2 Lester's Land Laws, 362–365; 2 Copp's Land Laws, 715, 719, 727; 19 L. D. 21.

See Central Pacific Railroad Co., 8 L. D. 30; Central Pacific Railroad Co. v. Valentine, 11 L. D. 238; North Star Mining Co. v. Central Pacific Railroad Co., 12 L. D. 608; Southern Pacific Railroad Co. v. Allen Gold Mining Co., 13 L. D. 165; California & Oregon Railroad Co., 16 L. D. 262; Barden v. Northern Pacific Railroad Co., 19 L. D. 188.

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