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BALTIMORE v.. McKIM. 455
there given to the defendants. Hence I am perfectly satisfied,
that there is no foundation for this last objection of the plaintiffs.
Whereupon it is Ordered, that the injunction heretofore granted in this case, be and the same is hereby dissolved.
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BALTIMORE v. McKIM.
The land office is considered as the general market in which all public lands are
sold.—In some cases individuals are allowed to acquire a legal title to land with-
out going into the land office.—The public lands can only be sold for a valuable
consideration, or disposed of with a view to some public benefit.—No appeal from
a decision of the Chancellor as judge of the land office.—The extent of the autho-
rity to acquire a right to land covered by the tide of the basin of Baltimore, by
making improvements thereon.—A patent may be granted for land covered by
navigable water subject to the right of navigation.—No title can be obtained from
the land office for any thing but land,—All improvements made upon land, by any
one without right, belong to the owner of such land.
THIS case was brought before the Chancellor in the Land Office
on caveats by The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore against
the issuing of patents on several certificates returned by Isaac
McKim , Jannet Hollins, Joseph King, junior, Robert Howard, John
White, Thomas Wilson, John Spear Nicholas, Dabney S. Carr, John
S. Smith, Robert Smith and James Howard, for separate parcels of
the ground called Smith's Wharf. These certificates and caveats
were entirely distinct. An order was passed on each appointing
a day for hearing, directing the surveyor of the county to lay down
the lands, and authorizing the parties to take testimony before any
justice of the peace, on giving two days notice as usual; but as
they depended upon the same principles of law, in all respects, the
parties, by consent, conducted them as one case; depositions and
proofs were taken, which with a plot of the whole ground, made
by the surveyor, were returned; after which the solicitors of the
parties were fully heard.
29tk November, 1831.—BLAND, Chancellor.—To have a correct
conception of the matter in controversy, it will be proper to recol-
lect, that the city of Baltimore was laid out, and has grown up
round the margin of a cove of the Patapsco river, near the mouth,
and to the westward of the stream called Jones' Falls, which passes
through the city; that much of the margin of this core was origi-
nally a marsh inundated at every reflux of the tide; that as the
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