Opinion of the Court.

and twenty-five feet on each side of it at five dollars an acre, and two dollars and a half an acre for the placer claim, a patent will issue to him covering both the placer claim and the lode. But it also provides that, where a vein or lode is known to exist at the time within the boundaries of a placer claim, the application for a patent, which does not also include an application for the vein or lode, will be construed as a conclusive declaration that the claimant of the placer claim has no right of possession to the vein or lode; and also that where the existence of a vein or lode in a placer claim is not known at the time of the application for a patent, that instrument will convey all valuable mineral and other deposits within its boundaries.

It does not appear in the present case that a patent of the United States has been issued to the plaintiff; but it appears that he has complied with all the proceedings essential for the issue of such a patent. He is therefore the equitable owner of the mining ground, and the government holds the premises in trust for him to be delivered upon the payments specified. We accordingly treat him, in so far as the questions involved in this case are concerned, as though the patent had been delivered to him. Being entitled to it, he has a right to ask a determination of any claim asserted against his possession which may throw doubt upon his title.

When it can be said that a lode or vein is known to exist in a placer mining claim within the meaning of section 2333 of the Revised Statutes, was considered to some extent in Reynolds v. Iron Silver Mining Co., 116 U. S. 687, and Iron Silver Mining Co. v. Reynolds, 124 U. S. 374, and, also, in Noyes v. Mantle, 127 U. S. 348, 353, and some of the difficulties in giving an answer that would be applicable to all cases were there stated. In the present case no difficulty arises, for the question was left to the jury and decided by them. The court instructed them to the effect that if they believed that the premises were located by the grantors and predecessors in interest of the plaintiff as a placer mining claim in accordance with law, and they continued to hold the premises until conveyed to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff continued to hold them.

Opinion of the Court.

up to the time of his application for a patent therefor, and at the time of such application there was no known lode or vein within the boundaries of the premises claimed, their verdict should be for the plaintiff.

The jury having found a general verdict for the plaintiff, must be deemed to have found that no such lode as claimed by the defendant existed when the application of the plaintiff for a patent was filed. We may also add, to what is thus concluded by the verdict, that there was no evidence of any lode existing within the boundaries of his claim, either when the plaintiff made his application or at any time before. The discovery by the defendant of the Dahl lode, two or three hundred feet outside of those boundaries, does not, as observed by the court below, create any presumption of the possession of a vein or lode within those boundaries, nor, we may add, that a vein or lode existed within them.

It is earnestly objected to the title of the plaintiff that he did not present any proof that the mining ground claimed by him was placer ground. It appeared that the ground had been surveyed and returned by the Surveyor General of Montana to the local land office as mineral land, and the defendant, in asserting the possession of a lode upon it admits its mineral character. That it was placer ground is conclusively established in this controversy, against the defendant, by the fact that no adverse claim was asserted by him to the plaintiff's application for a patent of the premises as such ground. That question is not now open to litigation by private parties seeking to avoid the effect of the plaintiff's proceedings.

Several questions presented by the plaintiff in error in his brief we do not notice, because they arise only upon the motion made by him for a new trial. The rulings upon such a motion are not open to consideration in this court.

Judgment affirmed.

Opinion of the Court.

DAHL v. MONTANA COPPER COMPANY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF MONTANA.

No. 86. Submitted November 7, 1889.- Decided November 25, 1889.

Dahl v. Raunheim, ante, 260, affirmed and applied.

The objection that a corporation cannot sue in a Territorial Court, on the ground that it does not appear that the corporation has complied with the conditions imposed by a statute of the Territory upon its transacting business there, cannot be urged for the first time in this court.

THIS case was argued with Dahl v. Raunheim, ante, 260. The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. William H. De Witt, for plaintiff in error, submitted on his brief.

No appearance for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action to quiet the title to certain placer mining ground, twenty acres in extent, in Silver Bow County, Montana, claimed by the plaintiff below, the Montana Copper Company, under a location made in March, 1879, against the assertion of ownership by the defendant to a portion of the premises as a lode claim under a location made in March, 1881.

The plaintiff applied for a patent for its placer ground in November, 1880, and notice of the application was published by the register of the local land office, and all the other provisions of the statute required in such cases were complied with. No adverse claim was filed by the defendant or any one else during the period of publication. The Dahl lode claim was not located until after that period had expired. The defendant is therefore precluded from questioning the right of the plaintiff to a patent for the premises, and, of course, from objecting either to the location or its character

Opinion of the Court.

as placer ground. The only question open to him in this controversy is whether the lode or vein claimed by him was known to exist at the date of the plaintiff's application, none having been included in such application, and upon that question a jury have passed, and found specially that no lode or vein was then known to exist within the boundaries of the placer claim.

The case is similar in this respect to the one just decided, Dahl v. Raunheim, ante, 260. But the plaintiff in error endeavors to raise another question in this court, namely, as to the competency of the Montana Copper Company, the plaintiff below, to do business in the Territory, and, consequently, to maintain any suit respecting its property, because it does not appear that it has complied with the conditions imposed by the statute of the Territory to its transacting business there. That statute, which was passed in July, 1879, provided that all foreign corporations organized under the laws of any State or Territory of the United States, or by virtue of any special acts of the legislative assembly of such State or Territory, or of any foreign government, should, before doing business within the Territory, file in the office of its secretary and in the office of the county recorder of the county wherein they intend to carry on business, an authenticated copy of their charter or certificate of incorporation, and also a statement verified by their president and secretary, and attested by a majority of the board of directors, showing:

First. The name of such incorporation, and the location of its principal office or place of business, without this Territory; and, if it is to have any place of business or principal office within this Territory, the location thereof.

Second. The amount of its capital stock.

Third. The amount of its capital stock actually paid in

money.

Fourth. The amount of its capital stock paid in any other way, and in what.

Fifth. The amount of the assets of the incorporation, and of what the assets consist, with the actual cash value thereof. Sixth. The liabilities of such incorporation, and, if any of its indebtedness is secured, how secured, and upon what property.

Opinion of the Court.

The statute also provided that such corporation or joint stock company should file at the same time and in the same offices a certificate under the signature of its president, or other acting head, and its secretary, stating that the corporation had consented to be sued in the courts of the Territory in all causes of action arising within it, and that service of process might be made upon some person, a citizen of the Territory, whose name and place of residence should be designated, and that such service should be taken and held to be as valid to all intents and purposes as if made upon the company in the State or Territory under the laws of which it was organized.

The statute also provided a forfeiture of ten dollars a day for every day in which such foreign corporation should, after four months from the publication of the act, neglect to file the statements and certificates mentioned, and declared that all acts and contracts made by such incorporation or any agent or agents, during the time it should fail and neglect to file the statements and certificates, should be void and invalid as to such corporation. In the present action the plaintiff alleges in its complaint that it is a corporation created under the laws of New York, doing business in Silver Bow County, in the Territory of Montana, and is the owner of the property in controversy. The answer of the defendant does not deny its incorporation, or its right to do business in that county, but only its ownership of the property. No question is therefore raised on the pleadings as to its competency to do business within the Territory for want of compliance with the provisions of the territorial law. The question at issue on the pleadings and on the trial in the court below was confined to the ownership of the mining ground. Without, therefore, considering the validity and force of the provisions of that law, (Congress having permitted corporations, whether formed within or without that Territory, to explore for and hold mining claims on the public domain, McKinley v. Wheeler, 130 U. S. 630,) or whether if they are valid, any parties except the government of the Territory can allege a disregard of them, to defeat the title of the corporation to its property,