Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/879

 HABBIS V. EQUATOB UIKINO <& SMELTIK» 00. 865 �they, or persons in their interest, were in possession of the Ocean Wave at the time the Charlotte Iode was located, in October, 1879. Upon these facts a question was presented at the trial, whether the plaintiffs, not having shown a valid location of the Oeean Wave, could claim anything in virtue of their possession of the ground in controversy, if the jury should find that they held possession at the date of the Charlotte location. And it was conceded that as to the tunnel itself, and the area covered by the buildings of the plaintiffs at and near the mouth of the tunnel, their right could not be denied. But it.was contended that nothing less than a valid location could give to them a possession beyond their aetual occupancy to the full extent of a claim 1,500 feet in length by 150 feet in width. TJpon a familiar principle, it was said, a locator of a mining claim on the public lande is required to conform to the statute and the local rules of the mining district in which his claim may be situatedj in order to establish his right to a full claim, and that a. grantee of the locator should be held to the same proof. This, however, embraces some- thing more than the principle that the title to and the right to occupy the public minerai lands can only be acquired in the manner pre- Bcribed by law. Conceding that proposition, it does not follow that a locator in aetual occupancy, who bas been evicted by a wrong-doer, must give evidence of every fact necessary to a valid location in an ac- tion to recover possession ; not on the ground that the essentials of a valid location are in any case to be omitted, but that in support of undisturbed possession, long enjoyed, a presumptionmay in some cases arise that the location was at flrst well made. The statute of limita-. tions, enacted by the state and recognized in the act of congress, is founded on this principle. If, in this state, the practicc in ejectment for mining claims has been to show all the steps of a valid location in cases of aetual occupancy and possession in the plaintiffs, it has never been declared that such proof is in all such cases indispen- sable. �It is not necessary, however, to discuss the point at length, for it is clear that a purchaser may be in a different position from the locator of the claim, not as against the general govemment, with which nothing can avail but strict compliance with the law regulat- ing locations, but as against other citizens seeking to locate the samo ground. It may well be said that a purchaser in possession under a conveyance regular in form is in by color of title, which, in time, under the statute of limitations, will ripen into a perfect right. And v.8,no.l2— 55 ��� �