Stephen Johnson Field

“ Surveys of the public lands in California were greatly delayed after the passage of the act of 1853, and as late as 1866 many townships had not been surveyed. For want of these surveys, it was impossible to ascertain the precise locality, in each township, of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, and of course, except in a few instances, such as where the whole township was embraced in a private claim under a Mexican or Spanish grant, it could not be known whether there had been any such settlement on those sections as would authorize the state to select other lands in lieu thereof. ”

“ The defendants below, the plaintiffs in error here, contend that the selections by the state were void, because made within the asserted limits of a claim under a Mexican grant before the survey of such grant, which excluded the disputed premises, had become final; and set up a right to the land as preemptors under the laws of the United States by settlement and improvement subsequent to the state patents, with a tender to the officers of the land department of the required sums in such cases of entitle them to patents of the United States. ”

“ No third person could be permitted to determine, in advance of such segregation, that any particular locality would fall within the surplus, and thereby justify his intrusion upon it and its detention from them. ”