Ayers v. Watson

Citations

• 137 U.S. 584
• 11 S. Ct. 201
• 34 L. Ed. 803
• 1891 U.S. LEXIS 2047

Syllabus

<p>The allowance of an amendment to' an application for the removal of a cause from a State Court, if allowable at all, is a matter of discretion, to which error cannot be assigned.</p> <p>When the monuments and other landmarks upon a tract of land in Texas correspond in part with the field notes of the. survey, and in part either do not conform to it or cannot be found, the footsteps of the original surveyor may be traced backward as well as forward, and any ascertained monument in the survey may be adopted as a starting point for its recovery.</p> <p>A memorandum made by a public surveyor in Texas at the time of the survey, and deposited in the General Land Office at the time when the title was deposited- there, is admissible in evidence to aid in proving the actual footsteps of the surveyor when making the survey.</p> <p>Original field notes of a public surveyor deposited in the General Land Office of Texas are held by the highest court of that State to be competent evidence to identify the granted premises; and this court, if it doubted as to their admissibility for that purpose, would be largely influenced by such decisions.</p> <p>A writ of error does not lie for granting or refusing a new trial.</p> <p>.In seeking to trace a survey on the ground, the corner called for in the grant as the “ beginning ” corner' does not control more than any other corner equally well ascertained, and it is not necessary to follow the calls of the grant in the order in which they stand in the field notes; but they may be reversed, and should be when by doing it the land embraced would most nearly harmonize all the calls and objects of the grant.</p> <p>If an insurmountable difficulty is met with in running the lines of a survey of public land in one direction; and all the known calls of the survey • are met by running them in the reverse direction, it is only a dictate of common sense to follow the latter course.</p> <p>When an instruction asked for has been substantially given,