Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/547

 NOBTH NOONBAY MINING CO. V. OEIENT MININO 00. C39 �the claims; that Welch, in August, 1878, placed a Une of mounds and stakes on each end of the several olaims 50 feet apart, for a distance of some 300 feet, by way of indicating the corners and end Unes; that Andersen, on October 19, 1878, measured off the claims and again set stakes according to the proper measurements ; that these stakes being four inches square, three and one-half feet high, painted white, and marked so as to indicate the corners and Iode Une of the said claims, were found there by Scowden when he finally surveyed the claims in the foUowing spring and located the shaft. �The testimony further tends to show, and, as to this part of the testimony, I believe there is none to the contrary — if there is any you -will remember it — that the interest in ail the three claims having been concentrated in the plaintiflF, the North Noonday Mining Company, in the preceding Novem- ber, the plaintiff, in March, 1879, before any other parties had entered upon these claims, or made any claim thereto, located and made arrangements to sink a three-compartment shaft, known as the combination shaft, for the benefit and to be used for the development of ail the claims, and also the Noonday claim to the south; that machinery and supplies were at once coUected and brought upon the ground for the purpose of sinking said shaft, and developing and jointly working ail said claims ; that from that time on the plaintiff, by its agents and servants, was actually on the ground erect- ing machinery and buildings, exercising acts of ownership and dominion over the claims, claiming title to the whole ; that the plaintiff commenced sinking the combination shaft on or about April 6, 1879, and from that time to the present has been, by its agents and servants, actually on the ground, constantly and vigorously prosecuting the work of developing and working the mines claimed by them, and constantly exercising dominion over them; that by June Ist buildings and machinery had been erected and brought upon the ground and supplies collected to the amount of more than $30,000. �If you find these to be the facts, gentlemen of the jury, then there was not at this time merely a constructive posses- sion of these mining claims by virtue of the mining laws alone. ��� �