Jacobs

—This is an action to determine a contest between the plaintiff and defendant as to which of them is entitled to purchase certain school-lands. The court below gave judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiff appeals therefrom on the judgment roll.

The court found the facts of the case to be, in substance, as follows: —

On the twenty-third day of February, 1883, the defendant filed in the office of the state surveyor-general his affidavit and application to purchase the northeast quarter and the south half of the northwest quarter of a certain thirty-sixth section of land in Mendocino County. He was at the time qualified to purchase school-lands, and his affidavit was in the form then prescribed by section 3495 of the Political Code, and all the facts set forth therein were true. On the third day of May, 1883, the application was duly approved by the surveyor-■general, and thereafter, on the sixteenth day of June following, defendant paid twenty per cent of the purchase-money and the first year’s interest on the balance, and received from the register of- the land-office a certificate of purchase for the land, in the usual form.

On the twenty-third day of February, 1884, the…