[1] Public Lands—Lands Bordering upon Navigable Waters—Purpose of Meander Lines.—Meander lines are run in surveying public lands bordering upon navigable rivers, not as boundaries of the tract, but to ascertain the quantity of the land subject to sale, and the watercourse, and not the meander line, as actually run on the land, is the boundary.

- [2] Id.—Watercourse, When Boundary.—Where the calls in a conveyance of land are for two corners at, in, or on a stream or its hank, and there, is an immediate line extending from one such corner to the other, the stream is the boundary, unless there is something showing that the intention of the parties was otherwise.

[3] Id.—Construction of Patent—Exclusion of Land, Below High Tide.—A patent should ordinarily he construed as excluding therefrom land below the high-tide line.

[4] Id.—Construction in Pavor of Grantor.—Every grant by the sovereign is construed strongly in favor of the grantor.

[5] Id.—Tide-lands Within Bancho San Pedro—Construction of United States Patent—Lines Defining Exception of “Inner Bay of San Pedro.”—In these actions brought by the city of Los Angeles to quiet title to certain tide-lands at San Pedro, wherein the defendant predicated its right to the lands upon a United States patent of the San Pedro Bancho issued in 1858 in confirmation of a Mexican grant prior to the year 1809, and wherein the' sole question for determination was whether or not the lines of the patent defining the “inner bay of San Pedro exception” were meander lines of the inner hay within the meaning of the rule which makes the shore line of such hay the actual boundary line where the intent is to meander such shore, it is held that the mean high-tide line of San Pedro Bay was the boundary between the land conveyed and the land retained by the government, and that therefore the claim of the plaintiff to the tide-lands as successors of the government was valid.

1. Meander lines as boundaries, notes, 27 Am. St. Bep. 59; 42 L. B. A. 502.

3. Effect of bounding grant on river or tide water, note, 42 L. B. A. 502.