Defendants’ demurrer to plaintiff’s second amended complaint was sustained, and plaintiff refusing to amend further, judgment was entered accordingly. From said judgment this appeal is taken.

Plaintiff asserting ownership, alleged to have been derived from the state of California, to all ’of section twelve, township thirty-two south, range twenty-four east, Mount Diablo base and meredian, but admitting that the corporation defendant was in possession of said section and had developed oil thereon, and that the state’s title thereto was still pending, prayed that while the state indemnity selections, upon which plaintiff rested its alleged title, were at issue before the United States general land-office and the department of the interior, defendants and their agents should be restrained and enjoined from producing or removing, selling or marketing any oil from said premises.

In the complaint it is alleged, among other things, that J. E. Wible, plaintiff’s predecessor in interest, made application to the state of "California to purchase the property in question; that “ thereafter and on or about the 17th day of October, 1906, the state of California filed in the United States local land-office at Visalia, California, four applications in writing for all of said land (one application for each quarter section thereof) as indemnity for losses sustained to its grant of public land for common schools, and paid the legal fees required upon such filings”; that after complying with all of the preliminary requirements governing such selections of lands (which are fully pleaded) the papers were transmitted by the register and receiver of the land-office at Visalia to the United States general land-office at Washington; that on May 20, 1907, and in accordance with the findings and instructions of the commissioner of the general land-office the selections were approved by the register and receiver at Visalia, and the assignments and transfers of the base land to the United States were accepted; that the selections were approved by the surveyor-general of California; that Wible paid for the land and received his certificate of purchase from the state; that in 1910 defendants entered upon the land and developed oil thereon in 1911; that in 1909 protests and contests had been filed against the state selections in the land-office at Visalia by predecessors in interest of defendants; that the protest with reference to the northeast quarter was dismissed by the general land-office- for insufficiency; that the others were still pending; that the state of California had done everything necessary to entitle it to have the land confirmed and listed to it; and that the plaintiff was entitled to a patent.

The principal point of difference between counsel, which was argued in their briefs, was whether or not the mineral character of the section, discovered, as it was, after the state and its grantee had done everything in their power to perfect title to the property as agricultural land, could justify the refusal of the interior department to confirm and list the tracts in dispute to the state and to those claiming under it. At the time of the submisison of this cause in April, 1913, at Los Angeles, plaintiff and appellant was permitted to file its petition for rehearing in a matter involving the very questions before us here. In that proceeding the interior department had held that neither the state of California nor its transferee can have any vested right in the land there in controversy until the selection is formally approved for listing by the secretary of the interior; that if the land is now known to be mineral in its character the secretary has no power to approve the selections, regardless of its supposed character at the time the said selections were made; and that under the act of June 25, 1910, known as the “Pickett Bill” (36 Stats. 847, [2 Fed. Stats. Ann. (1912) p. 821, U. S. Comp. Stats. 1911 p. 593]), the secretary of the interior would have no authority to approve the selections. (See State of California and Buena Vista Land and Development Co., Transferee, Petitioners, Honolulu Consolidated Oil Co., Petitioner, State of California and Buena Vista Land and Development Co., Transferee, Respondents, Visalia, 01915 School Land Indemnity Selections.)

Since that time our attention has been called to the fact that the petition in question has been denied. Appellant does not question our right to consider the decision of the interior department, given after a hearing of the matter above mentioned, and the opinion rendered on denial of appellant’s motion, but its counsel make the contention that since the same land here in controversy is not involved, we are not bound by the rulings of the interior department. Conceding this position to be correct, nevertheless we entirely agree with the reasoning of the interior department upon the matters decided, and as they are essentially the same problems presented in the case at bar, we must conclude that appellant hefie was not entitled to the relief, demanded and that the superior court properly sustained the demurrer to the second amended complaint. The opinion of the assistant secretary of the interior, Hon. Lewis C. Laylin, on denying the petition for rehearing by the Buena Vista Land and Development Company is as follows:

The judgment is affirmed.

Henshaw, J., and Lorigan, J., concurred.