US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

In adjusting congressional grants of lands to a state, the only questions for consideration by the officers of the United States are whether the state possessed the right to claim the land under the grant, and whether the land was subject to selection by its agents. Those officers have no jurisdiction to review transactions between the state and its purchasers, nor between the state and its locating agents, and determine whether such purchasers or locating agents complied with the provisions of its laws relating to the sale of the lands.

Surveys under the eighth section of the Act of July 23, 1863, "to quiet land titles in California," become operative by approval of the United States Surveyor General for the state, and his filing in the local land office of the township plats. Upon such approval of a survey and filing of the township plats, lands thereby excluded from a confirmed private land claim become subject to state selections and other modes of disposal of public lands. Previous approval of the survey by the Commissioner of the General Land Office is not necessary.

Lists of Lands certified to the state by the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior convey as complete a title as patents, and lands embraced therein are not thereafter open to settlement and preemption. chanrobles.com-red

Page 115 U. S. 103

This was an action in the nature of ejectment to recover possession of a tract of land in California. The facts which make the case are stated in the opinion of the Court.