Opinion of the Court. receiver is the possession of the court; and the court itself hoids and administers the estate, through the receiver as its officer, for the benefit of those whom the court shall ultimately adjudge to be entitled to it." The Circuit Court obtained jurisdiction over the Cardiff Coal and Iron Company by the filing of the original creditor's bill by Bosworth, a citizen of Massachusetts, and by the appointment of a receiver, and any suit by or against such receiver, in the course of the winding up of such corporation, whether for the collection of its assets or for the defence of its property rights, must be regarded as ancillary to the main suit, and as cognizable in the Circuit Court, regardless either of the citizenship of the parties, or of the amount in controversy. Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450, 460; Krippendorf v. Ilyde, 110 U. S. 276; Dewey v. West Fairmont Gas Coal Co., 123 U. S. 329; In re Tyler, 149 U. S. 164, 181; Root v. Woolworth, 150 U. S. 401, 413; Rouse v. Letcher, 156 U. S. 47, 49. Indeed, it was conceded that where an insolvent corporation is placed in the hands of a receiver of the Circuit Court, such appointment draws to the jurisdiction of that court the control of its assets, so far as persons having claims to participate in the distribution of such assets are concerned, and that parties must go into that court in order to assert their rights, prove their demands, and receive whatever may be due them, or their share or interest in the estate. But it is insisted that there is a distinction between cases where parties are brought before the court for the purpose of the payment to them of claims they may hold against the estate, and cases where it is sought to recover of them claims which the receiver insists. they owe the estate; that the receiver stands in the shoes of the company, and has no higher rights than the corporation, and having sued for less than the jurisdictional amounts, that as to them the cases must be dismissed. This position is entirely correct, so far as the right of the receiver to recover upon the merits is concerned; but it has no bearing whatever upon the question of the jurisdiction of the court to pass upon such merits. The receiver does not take his authority as an ordinary endorsee of the paper, and Syllabus. subject to the disability to sue in the Federal court, which attaches to such endorsee, but he takes title by operation of law, and as an instrument of the court which appointed him. The cases upon which the appellant relies of the New Orleans Pacific Railway v. Parker, 143 U. S. 42, and Walter v. Northeastern Railroad, 147 U. S. 370, were both original bills, over which jurisdiction could only be acquired upon proper allegations of citizenship and amount. In this case, however, the court proceeds upon its own authority to collect the assets of an estate, with the administration of which it is charged; and, if the receiver in such cases appears as a party to the suit, it is only because he represents the court in its inherent power to wind up the estate of an insolvent corporation, over which it has by an original bill obtained jurisdiction. In this particular, the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court does not materially differ from that of the District Court in bankruptcy, the right of which to collect the assets of a bankrupt estate we do not understand ever to have been doubted. There is just as much reason for questioning the jurisdiction of the court in this case. upon the ground of the want of diverse citizenship, as upon the ground that the requisite amount is not involved. Two cases decided by Justices of this court are directly in point. Price v. Abbott, 17 Fed. Rep. 506; Armstrong v. Trautman, 36 Fed. Rep. 275. The question certified will, therefore, be answered in the affirmative. HORNE v. SMITH. ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA. No. 341. Submitted May 2, 1895. -Decided June 3, 1895. In this case the United States Surveyors obviously surveyed the plaintiff's lot only to a bayou which they called the Indian River, leaving a tract between the bayou and that river unsurveyed; and the plaintiff has no right to challenge the correctness of their action, or to claim that the bayou was not the Indian River or a proper water line on which to bound the lots. Opinion of the Court. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. H. Bisbee for plaintiff in error. Mr. George M. Robbins for defendants in error. MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the court. On September 27, 1890, plaintiff in error, as plaintiff, commenced an action to recover possession of lot 7, section 23, (except thirty acres on the north side,) and lots 1 and 2, section 26, all in township 29 south, range 38 east, in the county of Brevard, State of Florida. The defendants answered, denying possession of the property described in the plaintiff's complaint. A trial was had, which resulted, on January 14, 1891, in a verdict for the defendants, upon which verdict, on June 30, 1891, judgment was entered. Thereupon plaintiff brought this writ of error. But a single question needs consideration. The title of the plaintiff to the property described in his complaint is not challenged, but the contention of the defendants is that the land which confessedly they occupy is not a part of the land so described. In other words, the only question involved is one of description and boundary. Plaintiff's title rests on a patent from the United States, dated March 20, 1885, conveying "lot numbered seven of section twenty-three, and the lots numbered one and two of section twenty-six, in township twenty-nine south, of range thirty-eight east of Tallahassee meridian in Florida, containing one hundred and seventy acres and forty-two hundredths of an acre, according to the official plat of the survey of the said lands, returned to the General Land Office by the surveyorgeneral." The official plat of township 29 was in evidence, which showed that sections 23 and 26 were fractional sections bordering on the Indian River. On this plat a meander line runs through the sections from north to south, the Indian River being on the west thereof. The east line of the sections. is, so far as these lots are concerned, the ordinary straight line of government surveys. In the south half of the southeast Opinion of the Court. quarter of section 23 is lot 7. The area of that lot is given as 73.06 acres. The northeast quarter of section 26 is divided into lots 1 and 2. The area of lot 1 is 54.90 acres, and of lot 2, 42.53 acres. The boundary lines of these three lots are all straight with the exception of the meander line on the west. The length of the section line between lot 7 and lot 1, extending from the east section line to the meander line on the west, is stated to be 30.55 chains. Along the course of this meander line, as shown on the plat, runs, according to the testimony, bayou or savannah opening into Indian River, and west of this bayou, and between it and the main waters of the river, is a body of land extending in width a distance of a mile or a mile and a quarter, and amounting to some 600 acres. This is a body of low land, in some places however from four to six feet above the level of the river, and covered with a growth of live-oak trees, many of them three and four feet in diameter. It was not land formed by accretion since the survey. a The contention of the plaintiff is that, inasmuch as this body of land is not shown upon the official plat, and although the boundaries and areas of the three lots are given, the latter aggregating only 170 acres, the patent for the lots conveys all the land to the main body of the river. In other words, a patent for 170 acres conveys over 700. The basis of this contention is the familiar rule that a meander line is not a line of boundary, and that a patent for a tract of land bordering on a river conveys the land, not simply to the meander line, but to the water line, and hence, as claimed in this case, carries it to the water line of the main body of the river. The testimony is apparently not all in the record, nor are all the instructions, but this presents the ruling of the court, "it is the rule that the meander line is not the boundary line; they are run, not as boundaries of the tract, but for the purpose of finding the sinuosities of the bank of the stream. Fractional divisions. made so by the water are designated and sold by the numbers attached to and reference is always had to the notes and maps of the survey. The water in the notes is the boundary, and when there exists a difference between the meander line as run and the actual margin of the stream or lake, the water is Opinion of the Court. the true boundary; but the rule has its limitations, as, for instance, a case in Polk County, with which I am familiar, where there is fifteen miles intervening between the meander line and the margin of a lake. This breaks the rule, and I charge you that when, as in this case, there is from threefourths of a mile to a mile and a quarter between the meander line and the actual margin of the river, and when for half a mile in width this land has upon it oak trees, some of which are from three to four feet in diameter, especially where the waters of the river make up, forming a bayou which conforms substantially to the meander line of the government survey, this is not within the rule." Whatever criticisms may be placed upon this instruction, we think that, as applied to the facts of this case, the ruling of the court was substantially correct. It is undoubtedly true that official surveys are not open to collateral attack in an action at law. Stoneroad v. Stoneroad, 158 U. S. 240; Russell v. Maxwell Land Grant Company, 158 U. S. 253. It is also true that the meander line is not a line of boundary, but one designed to point out the sinuosities of the bank of the stream, and as a means of ascertaining the quantity of land in the fraction which is to be paid for by the purchaser. Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272; Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371, 380. It is also true that metes and bounds in the description of premises control distance and quantities when there is any inconsistency between them. Morrow v. Whitney, 95 U. S. 551, 555. But the question in this case is whether the boundary of these lots is the bayou or the main body of the river. That a water line runs along the course of the meander line cannot, of course, in the face of the plat and survey, be questioned, but that the meander line of the plat is the water line of the bayou rather than that of the main body of the river, is evident from these facts. In the first place, the area of the lots is given, and when that area is stated to be 170 acres, it is obvious that no survey was intended of over 700 acres. In the second place, the meander line, as shown on the plat, is, so far as these lots are concerned, wholly within the east half |