CUNNINGHAM v. BROWNING. 331

special warrant, " accurately describes the vacancy, it effectually
binds it against all subsequent warrants or locations;" and further,
that" whatever may be done by a common warrant, may be effected
by a special warrant of vacant cultivation. It makes no difference
whether or not the survey under a special warrant includes part of
the land designated by the special warrant. In fact, the important
difference between the two warrants, is, that the special warrant,
before survey, affects the land accurately described in it. The
common warrant affects no land until it is surveyed, or located with
the surveyor."(e)

In short, the designation of the land given in the special warrant,
or the entry upon the surveyor's book, must be such a description
of a space, an area, or a tract, as may be understood and ascer-
tained by proof of the existence of the localities referred to; it
must be such an one as will suit no other land, and be sufficient in
itself without having any substantial matter supplied by parol
proof.(f) This may seem to be requiring too great a degree of
strictness; but it has long been the established law, and is not
more rigid than a due regard to the public good requires. Cer-
tainty is the mother of quiet; and in nothing more so than in the
titles to lands. The vacancy aimed at by a special warrant, is
often embraced by two or more other tracts. A reported example
of which may be found expressed thus : " about one hundred acres
vacant lying in A. A. county, and adjoining or between a tract
of land in possession of J. Brown, a tract of land belonging
to J. Hall, and a tract of land in the possession of J. McDon-
ald." (g) So in another instance where a particular neck of land
was described.(h) Other examples may be imagined. Suppose
the tract of land called Bellevoir to lay along, and parallel for some
distance, within half a mile of the river Severn, and the special
warrant, were expressed in these words: " about two thousand
acres vacant, lying in A. A. county, between the tract called Belle-
voir and the river Severn." Or, suppose Browning's Spring to be
situated a short distance west from the mouth of the stream called
the Little Crossings, the general course of which was north and
south, and the Panther Pen was a short distance west of the same
stream higher up; and the description in die special warrant was
thus: " about 200 acres vacant lying in Allegany county, west of
and bounding on the Little Crossings, and between Browning's

(«) Hopper v. Coleston, ante, 322.—(f) Beatty v. Orendorf; Land Ho. Ass. 402,
(§) Gawetson's Lessee v. Cole, 2 H. & McH. 459.—(A) Land Ho. Ass. 87