Loundagin

Appellant Inyo Marble Company, is a California corporation and the patentee of three placer mines containing about 480 acres within their exterior boundaries, to which they received a patent from the United States on August 26, 1921. The claims were first located in January, 1915, and the application for the patent was made on December 6, 1919. The patent contained the following provision: “That should any vein or lode of quartz or other rock in place bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits, be claimed or known to exist within the above-described premises at said last-named date, (Dec. 6, 1919) the same is expressly excepted and excluded from these presents.”

The respondents claimed portions of the property described in the patent, and also adjoining property by- reason of discoveries and locations of mineral lode or vein claims made by J. D. Leary and J. A. Loundagin in the latter part of 1925 and early in 1926. These locators went into possession of their claims, did assessment and development work thereon, shipped ore therefrom to smelters, and received pay therefor.

Appellant sought to quiet title to all land in its placer mine, to…