Frick

This is a bill by the United States seeking equitable relief on the ground of fraud, alleged to have been committed in the procurement of a patent to certain public lands therein described, under an application to purchase them as' timber lands, the substance of the material averments being that the application was made by one Robertson, from whom the defendant Frick purchased; that the fraud consisted in false representations and statements made in the sworn application and in testimony given before the Land Office by both Robertson and Frick — the latter appearing as a witness therein, on behalf of the applicant — as to the character and state of the lands, in this, that it was represented both in the application and in a nonmineral affidavit filed therewith and in the testimony given,on the hearing that the applicant and witnesses had personally examined the land, that it was unfit for cultivation, but was valuable chiefly for its timber, that it was uninhabited and unoccupied, and that it contained no valuable deposits of gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, or coal, *575 and that there were no mining or other improvements thereon; that these statements and representations were…