This was an action of ejectment, in which the defendants prevailed in the court below. 82 Fed. 578 . The plaintiff has brought the case here by writ of error. The subject of the action is a certain 40-acre tract of land situate in Esmeralda county, Nev., described in the complaint as the N. E. ■} of the N. E. | of section 22, township 2 S., range 39 E., Mt. Diablo base and meridian, together with a lot of mill tailings and slimes containing gold and sliver, which the plaintiff in his complaint alleges was upon *984 the land, and was removed therefrom and converted by the defendants to the plaintiff’s damage. The plaintiff’s claim to the land has its foundation in the act of congress approved June 16, 1880 ( 21 Stat. 287 ), and in certain legislation of the state of Nevada passed pursuant thereto. By the act of June 16, 1880, congress granted to the state of Nevada 2,000,000 acres of land, which lands, the act declared, were to be selected by the state authorities from “unappropriated, nonmineral, public lands,” and “in quantities not less than the smallest legal subdivision.” On the 12th day of March, 1885, the legislature of the state of Nevada passed an act entitled “An act to provide for the selection and sale. of lands that have been or may hereafter be granted by the United States to the state of Nevada,” by which act a state land office was created, of which the surveyor general of the state was made ex officio land register, and to whom all applications to purchase such lands as congress had granted or should grant to the state were required to be made. The act prescribes the course of proceedings in the matter of such applications, and provides that “all lands selected under the two million acre grant of June sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty, may be sold in tracts equal to one section to each applicant,” and that “no lands shall be sold in tracts less than the smallest legal subdivision.” St. 1885, p. 101. Under and pursuant to the provisions of this state legislation, one Alexander Morrison made application to the land register of the state of Nevada for the 40-acre tract in question, making the required payments therefor in the prescribed way, and the land register thereupon selected and made application therefor to the land department of the United States under- and by virtue of the act of congress of June 16, 1880. The list of selected land under that grant, including the piece in controversy, was certified by the commissioner of the general land office on the 7th of August, 1890, and by the acting secretary of the interior on the next day, “subject to any valid interfering rights which may have existed at the date of the selection.” The act of congress making the grant to the state of Nevada does not provide for the issuance of a patent to the state for the-lauds thereby granted. But by an act of congress of August 3, 1854 ( 10 Stat. 346 ), and embodied in the Kevised Statutes as section 2449, it is declared:

The supreme court has decided in a number of cases that a certified list issued under and pursuant to this statute is of the same effect as a patent. Frasher v. O’Connor, 115 U. S. 102 , 5 Sup. Ct. 1141; *985 Mower v. Fletcher, 116 U. S. 380 , 6 Sup. Ct. 409; McCreery v. Haskell, 119 U. S. 327 , 7 Sup. Ct. 176; Wright v. Roseberry, 121 U. S. 488 , 7 Sup. Ct. 985; Chandler v. Mining Co., 149 U. S. 79 , 13 Sup. Ct. 798. The cerliiied list, therefore, embracing the 40-acre tract in question, is to be regarded as a patent from the United States to the sta te of Nevada, — made, however, as is expressly recited on its face, “subject to any valid interfering rights which may have existed at the date of selection.” Based upon that conveyance to it, the state' of Nevada on the 22d day of May, 1891, by its proper officers, executed to Alexander Morrison its patent for the 40-acre tract in controversy, which patent recites upon its face that it is executed “according to the provisions of an act of the legislature approved March 12, 1885, entitled ‘An act to provide for the selection and sale of lands that have been or may hereafter be granted by the United 851ai.es to the state of Nevada,’ and the act amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto.” The supplementary act of the state; of Nevada is that of March 5, 1887 (St. 1887, p. 124), entitled “An act defining the rights of applicants for and contractors to purchase land from the state of Nevada, and providing for maintaining certain actions concerning such land,” by the first section of which it is declared that:

The second section of the act excludes, from the right thereby given to every one who has applied or contracted to purchase from the state any such land the right to maintain or defend any action at law or in equity concerning' it or its possession, all such land that was in the adverse possession of another at the date of such application to ■purchase.

Shortly after Morrison received his patent for the 40-acre tract in controversy, to wit, June 29, 1891, he executed- a deed therefor to the plaintiff, Garrard.

The answer of the defendant corporation, the Silver Peak Mines, in addition to denying the plaintiff’s alleged ownership of the property and his alleged right to its possession, alleges as a defense to the action that in the year I860, or thereabouts, the predecessors in interest and grantors of the defendant corporation, under and by virtue of an act of the legislature of the state of Nevada entitled “An act to provide for the location of lands containing salt,” located and had surveyed a tract of land and mill site and water right in the Silver Peak and Red Mountain mining district of Esmeralda county, Nev., containing 160 acres, specifically described in the answer; that such tract was located upon the unsurveyed and unappropriated public domain of the United States; that in the years 1865, 1866, and 1867, or thereabouts, the grantors and predecessors in interest of the defendant corporation caused to be erected and con *986 structed on tbe 160-acre tract a quartz mill costing about $70,000; that after the completion of the mill such proceedings were had and taken as that the government of the United States on the 1st day of May, 1879, pursuant to law, issued to the grantors and predecessors in interest of the defendant corporation a patent for 4.97 acres of the land upon which the quartz mill was then constructed, as a mill site; that ever since the year 1865 the defendant corporation and those from whom it has derived its title have been in the quiet, peaceable, and undisturbed possession of the said 160-acre tract of land, including the patented mill site; that ever since the year 1865 the defendant corporation, through its predecessors in interest and grantors, “has been, and now is, a bona fide settler and occupant of the land and premises described in the plaintiff’s complaint on file herein, and the whole thereof”; that the defendant corporation and its grantors have made valuable improvements thereon; that such settlement and improvements were made long prior to any selection of the 40-acre tract by the plaintiff or his grantor, and that the plaintiff and his grantor were well aware at the date of the selection under which the plaintiff claims that the defendant corporation and its grantors “was, and had been for a great number of years, in the open, notorious, and exclusive possession of all of said land, claiming ownership of and to the same as against this plaintiff, his grantors, and the entire world”; that on the 19th day of June, .1888, or thereabouts, and prior to the selection under which the plaintiff claims, one D. M. Brunton discovered, located, and claimed. a quartz ledge, under the name of the “Mancer Mining Claim,” 1,500 feet in length by 600 feet in width, containing gold, silver, and other precious metals, in and upon the 40-acre tract described in the plaintiff’s complaint; and that the said Brunton thereafter, for a valuable consideration, conveyed to the defendant corporation all his right, title, and interest in and to the said ledge, and in and to his said mining claim thereon located, ever since which time the defendant corporation has been in the quiet, peaceable, and undisturbed possession thereof. The answer further alleges that' notwithstanding that the plaintiff and his grantor well knew that the defendant corporation was, and had been for a long time prior to the date of the application by Morrison to purchase the 40-acre tract described in the complaint, in the quiet, peaceable, and undisturbed occupancy of the said land, and every part thereof, and well knowing that the defendant corporation and its grantors and predecessors in interest had caused to be erected thereon valuable, prominent, and permanent improvements, at a cost of about $100,000, and well knowing that the said land was mineral in character, containing gold, silver, and other precious metals, and also salt and saline, and that the said land was not fit for grazing or agricultural purposes, they, and each of them, falsely and fraudulently misrepresented and misstated the facts to the surveyor general and ex officio land register of the state of Nevada, and by such false and fraudulent acts and misrepresentations induced that officer to believe that the said land was unoccupied land, and nonmineral in character, and that he, so believing the said statements of the plaintiff and his *987 grantor, was induced to select tlie 40-acre tract described in tbe complaint as a part of tlie lands granted to tbe state of Nevada by tlie act of congress referred to, when in truth and in fact tbe said land was not of tlie class of lands thereby granted, but, on tbe contrary, was expressly excluded therefrom.

The case, by stipulation of tbe respective parties, was tried by tbe court below without a jury, after which the court made, among others, the following findings of fact:

These findings are assailed as being unsupported by the evidence. We think, as did the court below, that it is unnecessary to inquire into the validity of the mesne conveyances under which the defendant corporation asserts title. The action being ejectment, the plaintiff must recover, if at all, upon the strength of his own title. A careful examination and consideration of the record makes it clear that the trial court was entirely justified in finding that the land in question is not only mineral in character, and was so known to be by the plaintiff and his grantor at the time, and long prior to the time, when the latter made application to purchase it from the state of Nevada, but also in finding that it was then in the actual and adverse possession of the defendant corporation, or those under whom it claims, and had been so possessed under the claim of right for mining purposes by the Silver Peak Mines and those under whom it claimed ever since the year 1865. For part of the 40-acre tract claimed by the plaintiff as agricultural land the United States -issued its certificate of purchase to the Silver Peak & Red Mountain Gold & Silver Mining Company, under the mining mill site act of congress (Rev. St. tit. 32, c. 6), on the 1st day of May, 1879, which was prior to the making by congress of the grant to the state of Nevada under which the plaintiff claims, and on which mill site there had already been erected, and then stood, a quartz mill costing many thousand dollars. Not only so, but the whole of the 40-acre tract *989 described in the plaintiff’s patent is included within the 160-acre tract located by the Great Salt Basin Gold & Silver Miring Company in 1865 under and by virtue of a statute of the state of Nevada entitled “An act to provide for the location of lands containing salt,” approved February 21, 1865 (Gen. St. 1885, p. 104), a survey of which was made on the 8th day of November of that year, and recorded in the recorder’s office of the county in which the land is situated. That saline lands are mineral is well settled. Morton v. Nebraska, 21 Wall. 660 ; Milling Co. v. Clay (Ariz.) 29 Pac. 9 . Moreover, in and upon this particular 40-acre tract so applied for by the plaintiff's grantor, and patented to him, was the ledge of quartz discovered, located, and claimed by Brunfon, whose interest therein was afterwards, conveyed to the defendant corporation. That such land as this, whose true character at the lime of and prior to the initiation of the proceedings under which the plaintiff claims was disclosed, not only by the public records, but by costly mining' structures and improvements erected thereon, of which the plaintiff, as shown by the evidence and findings, had not only constructive but actual knowledge long prior to the making of the application under which he claims, did not pass under the grant to the state of Nevada, and the patent issued by it to the grantor of the plaintiff, is, we think, very clear.

The list certified by the officers of the land department of the United States to the state of Nevada, and which serves as it.s patent, in terms declares that it is made “subject to any valid interfering rights which may have existed at the date” of the selection of the land by the state. The grant by congress was made in express terms to apply only to “unappropriated, nonmineral, public lands.” The grantee, by act of its legislature of March 3, 1887 (St. 1887, p. 102), in terms declared and recognized the fact that the several grants made by the United States to the state of Nevada, reserved the mineral lands, aud expressly declared that the sales of such lands made by the state were made subject to such reservation. The statute of Nevada further provided that:

Section 2 of the same act declares that:

The facts shown by the record make it clear that the patent under which the plaintiff claimed was not only not authorized, but was prohibited, by the statutes of the very state whose patent it purports to be — First, because it was issued for known mineral land; and, next, because the land for which it was issued then was, and for many years prior to the application therefor had been, in the actual occupation of another under a claim of right. That a patent issued without authority of law may be impeached collaterally in a court of law is thoroughly settled. Patterson v. Winn, 11 Wheat. 380 ; Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 630 ; Wright v. Roseberry, 121 U. S. 488 , 7 Sup. Ct. 985; Doolan v. Carr, 125 U. S. 618 , 8 Sup. Ct. 1228; Davis’ Adm’r v. Weibbold, 139 U. S. 507 , 11 Sup. Ct. 628; Knight v. Association, 142 U. S. 161 , 12 Sup. Ct. 258. The judgment is affirmed.