"In the United States there are at least two independent systems of sovereignty which may be exercised in respect of mines and mineral lands, namely: that of the original thirteen states, and of the other states in respect to state lands, and that of the United States or federal government over the portion of the United States acquired by purchase other than as embraced in the first thirteen states and the states carved out of territory belonging to them. The state lands proper are again divided into at least two systems - those which belong to the original thirteen states, over which the federal government never had any natural or original jurisdiction as owner of the soil, and those embracing territory of the United States as acquired afterwards. In the former, there are traces of rights dependent upon colonial grants, which were mentioned in the last preceding section, and which will be referred to specifically wherever necessary herein.

"The sovereign power and authority which every nation has over the lands and property belonging to it are expressly recognized in the federal constitution, and conferred upon the Congress of the United States. Having this power conferred upon it by the constitution, it necessarily follows that Congress also has the Fodinae Regales; Collier Mines,

Queen vs. Northumber-1; and, Plowd., 336; Plowd., 31, 310. "The reason assigned by writers who place this right upon the 'excellence of the thing', is the puerile apology of the sycophant, and would scarcely be made by an English judge or writer of the twentieth century. But since the royal prerogative in England under the early common law, was an arbitrary power to do good and not evil, and since it was a fiction of the law that the King could do no wrong, it would seem that the act of seeking the further excuse for the exercise of this function than that of prerogative is one of supererogation." power to fix the rules and laws by which it will dispose of the mineral lands of the United States, and whether it will segregate the minerals or dispose of land and minerals together, or adopt the system of royal claim, or withhold them altogether. With few exceptions, which will be noticed in the part of this work treating of patents, the United States parts with the fee absolutely, and of course, in such case, its grantee gets the minerals, subject to the easement or estate, in certain cases elsewhere shown, of the right of an adjoining proprietor to penetrate his ground in following vein on its downward course.

"Manifestly, in the United States, the same doctrine must apply as to all lands occupied as public streets, which obtains in England. And in such case, where the title has never passed from the United States or the state, as the case may be, the minerals under the street must belong to the state or United States in virtue of its sovereignty. Where, however, the ultimate fee of the street or road-bed, as the case may be, is in a proprietor other than the occupant, it would follow that the owner of the fee in all cases would own the underlying mines. And as to mines beneath navigable river beds, there is undisputed authority from very early times that they belong| to the sovereign. There are cases authorized by law, which are fully considered elsewhere in this work where minerals are reserved out of a patent granted by the United States. But the United States parts with the title to mineral lands as such in only one way. There are no regalian rights in the United States." 14

14 Snyder on Mining Law, Vol. I, Sec. 15.