Source: http://openjurist.org/print/20484
Timestamp: 2015-07-28 03:45:10
Document Index: 463807699

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 24', '§ 5121', '§ 5123', '§ 5278', '§ 2320', '§ 4615']

252 US 450 Cameron v. United States
Home > 252 US 450 Cameron v. United States
252 US 450 Cameron v. United States 252 U.S. 450
40 S.Ct. 410
64 L.Ed. 659
CAMERON et al.v.UNITED STATES.
Argued January 29 and 30, 1920.
Messrs. Wm. C. Prentiss, of Washington, D. C., and Joseph E. Morrison, of Phoenix, Ariz., for appellants.
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Nebeker, for appellee.
The tract is on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, is immediately adjacent to the railroad terminal and hotel buildings used by visitors to the canyon and embraces the head of the trail,1 over which visitors descend to and ascend from the bottom of the canyon. Formerly it was public land and open to acquisition under the public land laws. But since February 20, 1893, it has been within a public forest reserve2 eatablished and continued by proclamations of the President under the Acts of March 3, 1891, § 24, 26 Stat. 1095, 1103 (Comp. St. § 5121), and June 4, 1897, c. 2, 30 Stat. 34-36 (Comp. St. §§ 5123-5134), and since January 11, 1908, all but a minor part of it has been within a monument reserve3 establish by a proclamation of the President under the act of June 8, 1906, c. 3060, 34 Stat. 225 (Comp. St. §§ 5278-5281). The forest reserve remained effective after the creation of the monument reserve, but in so far as both embraced the same land the monument reserve became the dominant one. 35 Stat. 2175. The inclusion of the tract in the forest reserve withdrew it from the operation of the public land laws, other than the mineral land law; and the inclusion of the major part of it in the monument reserve withdrew that part from the operation of the mineral land law, but there was a saving clause in respect of any 'valid' mining claim theretofore acquired. The United States still has the paramount legal title to the tract, and also has the full beneficial ownership if Cameron's asserted mining claim is not valid.
The defendants insist that the monument reserve should be disregarded on the ground that there was no authority for its creation. To this we cannot assent. The act under which the President proceeded empowered him toe stablish reserves embracing 'objects of historic or scientific interest.' The Grand Canyon, as stated in his proclamation, 'is an object of unusual scientific interest.' It is the greatest eroded canyon in the United States, if not in the world, is over a mile in depth, has attracted wide attention among explorers and scientists, affords an unexampled field for geologic study, is regarded as one of the great natural wonders, and annually draws to its borders thousands of visitors.
The claim in question is known as the Cape Horn lode claim and was located by Cameron in 1902 after the creation of the forest reserve and before the creation of the monument reserve. To make the claim valid, or to invest the locator with a right to the possession, it was essential that the land be mineral in character and that there be an adequate mineral discovery within the limits of the claim as located, Rev. Stat. § 2320 (Comp. St. § 4615); Cole v. Ralph, 252 U. S. 286, 40 Sup. Ct. 321, 64 L. Ed. ——; and to bring the claim within the saving clause in the withdrawal for the monument reserve the discovery must have preceded the creation of that reserve.
Cameron applied to the Land Department for the issue to him of a patent for the claim and similarly sought patents for other claims embracing other portions of the trail into the canyon. A protest was interposed charging that the land was not mineral, that there had been no supporting mineral discoveries and that the claims were located and used for purposes not contemplated by the mineral land law; and the Secretary of the Interior directed that a hearing be had in the local land office to enable the parties concerned—the protestant, Cameron and the government—to produce evidence bearing on the questions thus presented. Grand Canyon Ry. Co. v. Cameron, 35 Land Dec. 495; Id., 36 Land Dec. 66. After due notice the hearing was had, Cameron fully participating in it. This was shortly after the creation of the monument reserve. In due course the evidence was laid before the Commissioner of the General Land Office and he concluded therefrom that the claims were not valuable for mining purposes, and therefore were invalid. The matter was then taken before the Secretary of the Interior and that officer rendered a decision in which, after reviewing the evidence, he said:
'It is not pretended that the applicant has as yet actually disclosed any body of workable ore of commercial value; nor does the evidence reveal such indications and conditions as would warrant the belief or lead to the conclusion that valuable deposits are to be found, save, apparently, in the case of the Magician lode claim. With that possible exception, the probabilities of such deposits occurring are no stronger or more evident at the present time than upon the day the claims were located. The evidence wholly fails to show that there are veins or lodes carrying val