Stenfjeld

(after stating the facts as above). Rev.St. § 2330 ( 30 U.S.C.A. § 36 ), provides that: “Two or more persons or associations of persons having contiguous claims of any size, although such claims may be less than ten acres each, may make joint entry thereof; but no location of a placer claim made after the ninth day of July eighteen hundred and seventy, shall exceed one hundred and sixty acres for any one person or association of persons.”

The language of this statute is plain. It authorizes an association location of contiguous claims only. The clear implication is that claims not contiguous may not be joined in a single location. That this is so is indicated not only by section 2330 but by other provisions of the mining laws. Thus, it is provided that the location must be “distinctly *387 marked on the ground so that its boundaries can be readily traced.” It is admitted that the fraction in controversy was not marked upon the ground as a distinct parcel, but it -is claimed that, by virtue of an association location made to include 179 acres, that parcel, although segregated from other claims and surrounded by valid locations, was brought within the location.

The statute…