Barbree

This is an appeal from an order denying an application for a writ of mandate to require respondent, pursuant to section 3519 of the Political Code, to issue the usual certificate to the governor for the issuance of a patent for certain school lands. Petitioners claim the right to the patent, as the successors in interest to one Alfred Warren, the original applicant for said lands. On January 6, 1886, Warren filed his application or affidavit to purchase the lands therein described and the controversy here grows out of the following averments in the said affidavit: “That said land is not suitable for cultivation; that he had not entered any portion of any lands mentioned in section three thousand four hundred and ninety-four of the Political Code (to wit, the unsold portion of the five hundred thousand acres granted to the state for school purposes, the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, and the lands selected in lieu thereof), which, to gether with that now sought to he purchased, exceeds 642.24 acres. . . . That the township within which said land is situate was and had heen surveyed and sectionized by the United States prior to the date upon which said affidavit was made or…