United States v. Midway Northern Oil Co.

(sitting 'by special assignment). These cases involve closely related questions, were heard together, and it will be convenient to likewise dispose of them, noticing in the course of the /opinion wherein they differ, if at all. They are suits in equity brought by the government for decrees that the several tracts of land particularly described in the bills, together with the mineral contents thereof, are the property of the United States, free from all claims of the defendants, or any of them, and for an injunction restraining the *623 defendants from trespassing thereon or extracting the oil therefrom, and an accounting for oil heretofore extracted and disposed of.

The lands in controversy are mineral (petroleum) lauds of the United States situate kqthe Maricopa oil fields in California. They are included in presidential order of September 27, 1909, temporarily withdrawing all public lands, without particular designation, within an area of about 3,000,000 acres, the larger part of which was privately owned, “from all forms of location, settlement, selection,, filing, entry, or disposal,” under the mineral laws of the United States, “in aid of proposed legislation affecting the…