Chap. 79.—An ACT Amending and Re-enacting Section 43, Chapter 112,
Code of 1860, in Relation to Issue of Land Warrants.

Approved February 21, 1871.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly, That the forty-
third section of chapter one hundred and twelve of the Code
of eighteen hundred and sixty, be amended and re-enacted so
as to read as follows:

Ҥ 43. The said register shall not issue any grant for land
upon any survey heretofore made and not yet carried into
grant (other than an inclusive survey), or made after this act
takes effect, unless there be endorsed on such survey an affida-
vit of the person applying for the grant, as well as that of the
surveyor making the survey, that they verily believe that the
land embraced in the survey has not been previously appro-
priated, or that it was, at the time of the entry thereof, liable
to entry, or that he has bona fide title or claim to such land,
and desires, by a new grant, to perfect or quit his title or claim
thereto; but upon making the affidavit, in either of the forms
aforesaid, the register may issue a grant upon such survey ;
but no grant issued by the register, either in consequence of
any survey already made, or which may hereafter be made,
shall be valid or effectual in law to pass any estate, or interest
in any lands unappropriated or belonging to the common-
wealth, which embrace the old magazine at Westham, or any
stone quarry now worked by the state, or any lands which are
within a mile of said magazine or any such quarry, or to pass
any estate or interest in lands which are a common, under
chapter sixty-two of said Code, or to pass any estate or inte-
rest in any natural oyster bed, rock, or shoal, whether the said
bed, rock, or shoal shall ebb bare or not; but every grant for
any such lands, bed, rock, or shoal, shall be absolutely void.
The said magazine, and every such stone quarry, and every
such natural oyster bed, rock, or shoal, and the lands of the
commonwealth adjacent thereto, or in their neighborhood, shall
be under the control of the governor, who may make such
regulations concerning the same as he may deem best for the
interests of the state. In all cases excepted in this bill, when
a grant has not been actually issued, even though the party
has paid the amount required tor the warrant, no grant shall
be issued by the register of the land office, and the auditor of
public accounts is authorized and instructed, upon due appli-
cation, to refund to the party or parties the amount so paid.”
2. This act shall be in force from its passage.