CUNNINGHAM v. BROWNING.

among other tilings declared, that every one claiming title to any
land in certain to be holden of his lordship, may demand his claim
to be entered upon record, and such entry shall bar all ensuing
grants of the same land till the claim be tried, (j) This legislative
provision may probably have been the suggestion from which spe-
cial warrants arose; and it is also not unlikely, that it gave rise to
a practice, which was introduced not long after, of designating the
land intended to be surveyed by a caveat in the office, and the
marking of trees as a still more conclusive location and appropria-
tion of the land until it could be actually surveyed. But this mode
of designating lands by caveat endured but a short time, and is
now entirely obsolete.(k) A caveat against the emanation of a
patent, it will be recollected, has always been regarded as, in fact,
the commencement of a judicial controversy; whereas this caveat
in the office was nothing more than a warning to all persons not to
take up the lands therein described; it was in truth no more than
a special entry of the party's claim upon record, like that made in
a special warrant, or in a surveyoi's book; and had no analogy
whatever to a caveat in chancery. It may also be well to recol-
lect, thatthe proceeding by caveat in the Orphans Court,(l) as derived
from the ecclesiastical courts of England,(m) is essentially differ-
ent from the caveat in chancery against the emanation of a patent.
And the term caveat has in our judicial proceedings been applied
in other cases as an admonition to the court not to do certain acts,
to which a party objected, until he could be heard; as not to record
depositions taken under a commission to mark and bound lands,(n)
or not to enter up a judgment or pass a decree upon an award, and
the like, (o)

We may now pass on to the consideration of the case brought
before the court by this caveat in the Land Office.

According to the known and long established principles upon
which public lands may be acquired by an individual from the
State, the tide commences with the designation of the tract by the
purchaser. After the date of the designation, and before a grant
has been issued, the title is inchoative, and imperfect; but when a
grant has been obtained, the title is then absolute and complete. A
sufficient description of the land intended to be secured gives an

(/) 1642, ch. 51; Land Ho. Ass. 248.—(k) Land Ho. Ass. 2l5.~(l) Dep, Com
Gu, 160; 1798, ch. 101, Sub-ch. 2, s. 9.—(m) 1 Jac. Law Dict. 407.—(n) Roch v
Giles, 1 H. & McH. 186.—(o) Dorsey v. Jeoffray, 3 H. & McH. 121; Shelf. Lun
& Idiots, 104,654,624; In matter of Fust 1 Cox. 418.