Edward Douglass White

“ If it had been their intention to only undertake to build the dock for the price stipulated, provided a guaranty was afforded them by the United States that the soil upon which the dock was to be constructed was to be of a particular nature, conforming to a plan then existing, a purpose so important, so vital, would necessarily have found direct and positive expression in the bid and specifications, and would not have been left to be evolved by a forced and latitudinarian construction of the word 'available,' used only in the nature of a recital in the specifications, and not in the contract. ”

“ The contract imposed upon the contractors the obligation to construct the dock according to the specifications, within a designated time, for an agreed price, upon a site to be selected by the United States. We look in vain for any statement or agreement, or even intimation, that any warranty, express or implied, in favor of the contractor, was entered into concerning the character of the underlying soil. ”

“ Reducing all the contentions of the claimant to their ultimate conception, they amount simply to the proposition that he United States by the written contract guarantied the nature of the soil under the site of the proposed dock, and assumed the entire burden which might arise in case it should be ascertained, during the progress of constructing the dock, that the soil under the selected site differed, to the detriment of the contractor, from that delineated upon the profile plan which had been made by an officer of the United States. ”