ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Nevada.
This is a suit in ejectment brought by the Eureka Consolidated Mining Company against the Richmond Mining Company of Nevada to recover the possession of a valuable mining property. The facts appearing in the findings, which, in the opinion of the court, are decisive of the case, may be stated as follows:--
In Ruby Hill, a spur of Prospect Mountain, in the Eureka Mining District, Nevada, is a zone of limestone, running in a northwesterly and southeasterly direction for a distance of a little more than a mile. Underlying this zone, on the southerly side, is a well-defined unbroken foot-wall of quartzite, several hundred feet thick, and with a dip to the northward of about forty-five degrees. On the northerly side is an overhanging wall or belt of shale, also well defined and generally unbroken, which dips at an angle of about eighty degrees, and varies in thickness from less than an inch to seventy or eighty feet. At the easterly end of the zone these walls of quartzite and shale approach so closely as to be separated only by a seam less than an inch in thickness. From this point they diverge until on the surface, at the Eureka mine, they are about five hundred feet apart, and at the Richmond about eight hundred. At some depth below the surface they must come together if thy continue to descend on the same angle, and, on some of the levels that have been worked, they are already found to be only from two to three hundred feet apart. This zone of limestone, at some time since its original deposit, has been broken, fissured, and disintegrated in all directions, so as to destroy, except in a few places of a few feet each, all traces of stratification. In this way its original structure and character became totally changed, and it was fitted to receive the extensive mineral deposits which are found in the numerous fissures, caverns, and cavities, and in the loose material of the rock, in various forms. Sometimes the mineral appears in a series or succession of orebodies, more or less closely connected; sometimes in apparently isolated chambers, and again in small bodies and in scattered grains. Although barren limestone intervenes, the mineral is so generally diffused throughout the zone as to render the whole mineralized matter metal-bearing rock. Bodies of ore appear in croppings on the surface at various points throughout the whole length of the zone, along which mining claims have been located. No mineral has been found either in the quartzite or the shale, and no considerable indications of any have been discovered within a mile north or south of the limestone.
In 1864 the miners of the district abopted a system of laws and regulations for their government. At that time provisions were made for ledge locations only, and in February, 1869, it was found necessary to add some amendments to meet the requirements of the district. This was done by a resolution which contained a preamble as follows:-- 'Whereas, explorations have made it evident that the mineral in Eureka District is found more frequently in the form of deposits than in fissure-veins or ledges, and the laws of the district do not provide for the location of such deposits; and whereas, the deficiency in the law may give rise to expensive litigation, . . . the miners of Eureka District have adopted the following amendments to the old laws of the district.'
The amendments were to the effect that deposit claims might be located; that a deposit claim should consist of a piece of ground one hundred feet square, and be designated as a 'square;' that under certain circumstances such claims might be united; and that the owner should be entitled to all the mineral within his 'ground to an indefinite depth.'