Hill

— This is an action to quiet title. The answer denies that the plaintiff is the owner or ever was entitled to the possession of any lands in block 1, except as a miner under the mining laws of the United States, and avers that any right he ever had was lost by reason of his failure to comply with the provisions of section 2324 of the Revised Statutes of the United States; alleges that defendant Belle Hill is the owner and entitled to the possession of the property. In further defense, the defendants alleged that the lands in controversy are part of section 10, township 12 north, range 8 east, Mount Diablo base and meridian, and are, and for twenty years last past *124 have heen, mineral lands; that in 1871 the lands were, and ever since have been, generally and well known to contain, and did in fact contain, a valuable mine of gold-bearing quartz, and since said year have been worked as such under valid mining locations, and large quantities of gold have been from time to time extracted therefrom; that on June 1, 1887, and while the lands were open to location as public mineral lands, the defendant Belle Hill duly located the mine and ground as a quartz-mining claim, by posting a…