"All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United States, and those who have declared their intention to become such, under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local customs or rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States."1

"Title to mineral lands cannot be acquired by occupancy unless for the purpose of mining or extracting minerals." 2

"Under this statute the public lands are free and open to exploration and occupation by the citizen for his own profit. This applies to all land containing valuable deposits, including building stone. The right thus granted necessarily carries with it the license to take what may be found in the course of exploration and apply it to the discoverer's own use, or option is left to him to acquire the exclusive right to the land containing deposits; but if he does not choose to do so, he may still avail himself of the deposit exclusively or in common with others, unless some one else acquires the exclusive right from the government. In getting stone upon the public domain, the person is not a trespasser; by taking it and bestowing his labor upon it, or causing labor to be bestowed upon it, by an employee, he becomes the owner of it in fact against every person." 3

1 U. S. Rev. Stat., Sec. 2319.

2 Burns vs. Clark (1901), 133 Cal., 634.

Limestone has been held not to come under the provisions of this Act, since the mining laws were intended to embrace only deposits of ore, and the term mineral excludes the idea of any nonmineralized deposit,4 but there are decisions to the contrary.5

"The Land Department of the government has the power to determine the character, as mineral or nonmineral, of land for which a patent is asked, unless the determination of that question is committed by Congress to the local courts." 6