Supreme court of the United States. No. 135. The United States, appellants, vs. John A. Sutter. Appeal from the District court U.S. for the Northern district of California.

The United States vs. Sutter. 643
3. With a view to ascertain the precise locality and boundaries of
each claim with as much accuracy as possible, you will consult the
most reliable witnesses that can be obtained, who may have resided
in the vicinity, or have been more or less connected with the former
government officials in the disposition of lands, and who may, from
personal knowledge, be intimate with the boundaries and landmarks
mentioned in the grant, and other documents relating thereto. You
will enter in your field-book all information that may have a tendency
to throw light upon any matter in controversy, or to show the
675 propriety of the course you adopt in making the survey.
4. Upon making these preliminary examinations, should you
have good reason to believe that, in any instance, by the phraseology
of the final decree, lands are included therein which are clearly not
embraced within the limits of the claim as originally granted, you
will be particular in your endeavors to ascertain the exact nature and
cause of such variance, and report all the facts to this office for further instructions.
5. Whei a confirmee is limited to a less quantity of land than is
embraced within the boundaries of his original title papers, he may
select out of any portion of such larger tract the quantity to which
he is entitled; but the quantity thus selected must form a compact
body of land; and if any portion of the original grant has been sold,
as such, by the owners thereof, such portion is to be included within
the limits of the claim thus selected, if practicable, without
675 destroying the compactness of the survey.
6. It is required, in locating these claims, that the boundaries shall conform, as near as the nature of each case will admit of,
to the lines forming the legal subdivisions of the public lands; and
hence. when the boundary is not the bed or bank of a river, or other
water-course, the margin of a swamp, or other overflowed land, or a
line separating different claims, it should, if possible, be established
by running to the cardinal points, so as to correspond to what otherwise would be the general course of such boundary line, and at the
same time dispense with fractions of the legal subdivisions of sections
when the adjacent public lands are surveyed.
7. When a river, creek, arroyo, or other water-course which is not
navigable, or declared to be so by the laws of the State, forms a
boundary of any rancho, you will run the line along the channel or
middle of the bed of such stream, and not on either of its banks; and
when swamp or other overflowed lands constitute the bounda677 ry, you will, unless otherwise specially instructed, if upon tidewater, establish such boundary, so as to coincide with the line
of ordinary high tide; but if not upon tide-water, with the line where
the land becomes of such a marshy or overflowed character as, in
ordinary seasons. to prevent the proper cultivation of the soil, or the
raising of planted crops.
8. These surveys must be connected with the nearest established
corners on the lines of the adjacent public surveys, in order to indicate the precise locality of each claim, and a post must be established
at the point where any such line is intersected by the boundary line