Oakley

This is an action to determine a contest arising in the state surveyor general’s office, for the purchase of a portion of a sixteenth section of public school lands belonging to the state. The lands were surveyed in the field and the township plat approved in the year 1861, and the plat was returned to the office of the register of the local land office on the eleventh day of April, 1873. Applications for the purchase of the land were made by Linebaugh, Stuart and the plaintiff.- That of the plaintiff was in all. respects sufficient, and he is entitled to purchase the land *2 if those of Linebaugh and Stuart, which were prior in point of time, were for any reason invalid.

The application of Stuart was made on the twelfth day of April, 1873, under the provisions of section 3495 of the Political Code. His affidavit stated that there was no occupation of the lands adverse to any he had, and failed to state that the township had been sectionized or that the plaintiff was in the adverse occupation of the lands sought to be purchased. The court found that the plaintiff entered into the possession and occupancy of a large portion of the lands between January 1 and April 1, 1873, and…