to protection.  This principle received the entire concurrence of my associates, and was applied by us, in its fullest extent, for the protection of all possessory rights on the public lands.  Thus, in Coryell vs.  Cain, I said, speaking for the court:  “It is undoubtedly true, as a general rule, that the claimant in ejectment must recover upon the strength of his own title, and not upon the weakness of his adversary’s, and that it is a sufficient answer to his action to show title out of him and in a third party.  But this general rule has, in this State, from the anomalous condition of things arising from the peculiar character of the mining and landed interests of the country, been, to a certain extent, qualified and limited.  The larger portion of the mining lands within the State belong to the United States, and yet that fact has never been considered as a sufficient answer to the prosecution of actions for the recovery of portions of such lands.  Actions for the possession of mining claims, water privileges, and the like, situated upon the public lands, are matters of daily occurrence, and if the proof of the paramount title of the government would operate to defeat them, confusion and ruin would be the result.  In determining controversies between parties thus situated, this court proceeds upon the presumption of a grant from the government to the first appropriator of mines, water privileges, and the like.  This presumption, which would have no place for consideration as against the assertion of the rights of the superior proprietor, is held absolute in all those controversies.  And with the public lands which are not mineral lands, the title, as between citizens of the State, where neither connects himself with the government, is considered as vested in the first possessor, and to proceed from him.”—­(16 Cal., p. 572.)

The difficulties attendant upon any attempt to give security to landed possessions in the State, arising from the circumstances I have narrated, were increased by an opinion, which for some time prevailed, that the precious metals, gold and silver, found in various parts of the country, whether in public or private lands, belonged to the State by virtue of her sovereignty.  To this opinion a decision of the Supreme Court of the State, made in 1853, gave great potency.  In Hicks vs.  Bell, decided that year, the court came to that conclusion, relying upon certain decisions of the courts of England recognizing the right of the Crown to those metals.  The principal case on the subject was that of The Queen vs.  The Earl of Northumberland, reported in Plowden.  The counsel of the Queen in that case gave, according to our present notions, some very fanciful reasons for the conclusion reached, though none were stated in the judgment of the court.  There were three reasons, said the counsel, why the King should have the mines and ores of gold and silver within the realm, in whatsoever land they were found:  “The first was, in respect to the excellency of the thing,