Court Opinion

ID: 8839017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 16:34:00.774649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:05:09.087644
License: Public Domain

Sabin, J.,
(concurring.) I fully concur in the decision just read, but I desire to add a word in confirmation of it, or rather in regard to a matter connected therewith, that has often arisen before the court, and which is very liable to arise in the future. In the judgment just rendered it is decided that the grant by congress, under discussion, was a grant inprss-sentí, and that upon compliance with the terms of the grant the title to the land vested in the railroad company. This matter has been so often before the court, and so often decided by this court, and the supreme court, that it is not -worth while to mention it further. There seems in this matter, where the government has issued title to land, either to railroad companies or to the state, by way of its school lands, or to private parties, to be a misunderstanding on the part of many people that all these lands are still subject to exploration by outside parties for mines, or anything else, the same as though they were public lands of the United States. The act of congress which opens the public land to exploration for mines speaks only of public lands. Indeed, it is public land only that congress has authority to grant a license to go upon. I think, after the government has, as in this case, divested itself of the title to the land, that any man going upon the land to exploreformin.es, or anything else, is a mere trespasser. The lands are to that extent withdrawn! from ex-' ploration for mines; and I am utterly at a loss to see how any one can assume that he can acquire a legal title to a mine upon my land, or on any one’s land, the title óf which has been divested from the government, or how he can assume, to acquire any such title from any act of congress that I have any knowledge of. As I observed, these matters have incidentally come so often before the court for discussion that I think it worth while to call the attention of the profession to the fact that by the express terms of congress only public land is open for exploration for mineral. As said by the supreme court in the case of Belk v. Meagher, 104 U. S. 279, location confers no right of entry upon lands, unless the previous right to enter on that land to locate a mine, or for other purposes, pre-existed. Right of entry is the paramount thing. If a man has a right to enter upon the public land, or a right to enter upon my land, to explore for mines, then he may make a location; but, if he has not that right of entry in the first instance, then his location amounts to nothing, whatever *625he may discover. I know of no law that gives any one a right to explore my land, or any companies’ or corporations’ land, for the purpose of making a location upon it. The supreme court has often held that no right of pre-emption or otherwise can be initiated by trespass.