US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

When the statutes of the United States and local laws of a mining district authorize a location on a vein of only two hundred feet by each locator, a location by mistake for more than two hundred feet is not thereby made entirely void, but is good for two hundred feet and void only for the excess.

A claimant making a claim in good faith as discoverer of a constituent vein in the Ruby Hill deposit before it was known that the deposit was one lode, is entitled to the additional two hundred feet of location given to discoverers.

The filing of a complaint in a court of competent jurisdiction is a commencement of proceedings by an adverse claimant to determine the right of possession to mineral lands under Rev.Stat. § 2328.

Where defendant in a proceeding under Rev.Stat. § 2326 to determine adverse claims to mineral lands demurs to the complaint and answers and goes to trial, it is too late to raise the objection that the complaint was not filed within the time required by the statute.

A decision of a state court upon the question of what constitutes the commencement of an action in that court is not a federal question.

It is not competent for officers of the Land Department, while a proceeding under Rev.Stat. § 2328 is pending in a court of competent jurisdiction, to assume from delay in placing the cause upon the trial calendar or taking proceedings therein that the adverse claim has been waived and to issue a patent for the mineral lands in dispute as if no adverse claim had been made.

A title founded on a patent, procured by an independent application, for a different mineral tract, applied for and issued pending proceedings under Rev.Stat. § 2326 cannot be set up in those proceedings to affect the result of the litigation in them.

This was a proceeding under Rev.Stat. §§ 2325, 2326, to determine adverse claims to the possession of mineral lands in Nevada. The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court. By direction of the Court, the following explanatory map has been prepared to show the location of the several claims: chanrobles.com-red

Page 114 U. S. 577

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Page 114 U. S. 578