Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The material facts are few. In the original survey by the government in 1853 the lake was meandered, which meant under the instructions to surveyors then in force that it was a lake or deep pond, and no patent ever has issued from the United States. In 1903 the plaintiff in error applied to the Secretary of the Interior to have the land surveyed as swamp land, but the application was refused, on the ground that it did not appear sufficiently that there was not a lake there, as indicated, at the time of the survey. ”

“ The question as to the title to the bed is treated as open in Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U.S. 508, 519, 47 L. ed. 1156, 1157, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 685, and Whitaker v. McBride, 197 U.S. 510, 515, 49 L. ed. 857, 861, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 530, and there is no need to decide it now. ”