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Appellant predicates his claim of right to make the mineral location in part upon verbiage of Title 30 U.S.C.A. § 22, enacted in 1872, authorizing mineral entries on "lands belonging to the United States". Prior to this enactment mineral lands were subject to disposition under the Act of July 26, 1866, 14 Stat. 251, which relates to "the mineral lands of the public domain". The legislative history of the 1872 Act affords no grounds for believing that the variance in verbiage from the earlier statute has any present significance. The contrary, indeed, appears to be the case. Representative Sargent who fathered the 1872 bill and was in charge of it in the House said that "the bill does not make any important changes in the mining laws as they have heretofore existed. It does not change in the slightest degree the policy of the Government in the disposition of the mining lands." Cong. Globe, 42nd Congress, 2d Sess., p. 534.4
However this may be, debate on the point would appear to be foreclosed by the holding of the Supreme Court in State of Oklahoma v. State of Texas, 1922, 258 U.S. 574, 599-600, 42 S.Ct. 406, 416, 66 L.Ed. 771, where the Court, after quoting the relevant provision of the 1872 Act, said: "This section is not as comprehensive as its words separately considered suggest. It is part of a chapter relating to mineral lands which in turn is part of a title dealing with the survey and disposal of `The Public Lands.' To be rightly understood it must be read with due regard for the entire statute of which it is but a part, and when this is done it is apparent that, while embracing only lands owned by the United States, it does not embrace all that are so owned. Of course, it has no application to the grounds about the Capitol in Washington or to the lands in the National Cemetery at Arlington, no matter what their mineral value; and yet both belong to the United States. And so of the lands in the Yosemite National Park, the Yellowstone National Park, and the military reservations throughout the Western States. Only where the United States has indicated that the lands are held for disposal under the land laws does the section apply; and it never applies where the United States directs that the disposal be only under other laws."
When all these prerequisites are complied with, and the claimant has paid the price of the land, he is entitled to a certificate of entry from the register and receiver; and after a reasonable time, to enable the land officer to ascertain if there are superior claims, and if in other respects the claimant has made out his case, he is entitled to receive a patent, which for the first time invests him with the legal title to the land.