after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
“ It will bе observed,” as was said by the Circuit Court of Appeals, “that the judgment of the Circuit Court was not limited to the two rocks or islands embraced in the executive order of January 13, 1899, the one covering fourteen one hundredths and the other one one hundredth of an acre, but awarded the government the entire tract of fourteen and sixty-nine one hundredths acres, including the warehouses and other improvements constructed by the defendant and its predecessors in interest.” The Circuit Court of Appeals confined the recovery of the plaintiff to the rocks proper and awarded the submerged lands to the defendant. The controversy then is, which party lias the title to the latter. The defendant in error is the successor of the rights and title of the California Dry Dock Company, that company being grantee of Henry. B. Tichenor, who received the patent for the lands on the 11th of July, 1872, from the State of California, in pursuance of and in conformity with an act of the legislature of the State, entitled “ An act *404 to provide for the sale and conveyance of certain subinerged lands in the city and county of San Francisco to Henry B. Tichenor.” Stat. California, 1869-70, p. 801.
Had the State the title to convey ? The plaintiff in error, in effect, contests this, and asserts besides a right to the submerged land as an easement appurtenant to the islands.
The title and dominion which a State acquires tо lands under tidewaters by virtue of her sovereignty received elaborate consideration, exposition and illustration in the case of
Shively
v.
Bowlby,
This right is an attribute of the sovereignty of the State, and it follows that in the exercise of the right, as said by Mr. Justice- Gray, the State may “dispose of its tide lands free from any easement of the upland proprietоr.” The facts of the case emphasized its doctrine, Shively was the owner of *405 the upland. Bowlby was the grantee of .the State of Oregon of the tide lands in front of Shively’s property. The grant was sustained. The sovereignty of California and the rights and powers dependent upon it are as complete as those of other States. How has California chosen to exercise them ? In other wоrds, what is the law of California as to the title and rights of riparian or littoral proprietors in the soil below high water mark ? Upon the answer to these question the present litigation must be determined. The .titlе papers of the defendant contain an act of the legislature of the State conveying the lands in controversy in private ownership, and the history of the State shows that the act was in аccordance with the policy and practice of the State.
The legislature, commencing at the first session after the admission of the State into the Union, made grants of the tide lands to municipalities under conditions which contemplated their being conveyed to and held in private ownership. Among these was the act of March 26, 1851, known as the “ Beach and Water Lot Act.” It was entitled “An act to provide for the disposition of certain property of the State of California,.” Section 1 provided that “ all the lots of land situated within the following boundaries according to thе survey of the city of San Francisco, and the map or plat of the same now on record in the office of the recorder of the county of San Francisco, are known and designatеd in this act as the San Francisco Beach and Water Lots; that is to say, beginning at the point,” etc. Then follows a description by streets, which includes a portion of the bay. Section 2 grants the use аnd occupation of the land for ninety-nine years and confirms grants of lands sold by authority of the ayuntamiento, or town or city council, or by any alcalde of said town or city ; and section 4 makеs the boundary line described in the first section a permanent water front of the city. These acts came up for consideration, and the character of the title conveyed was defined in Smith v. Morse, 2 California, 524; Eldridge v. Cowell, 4 California, 80, 87; Chapin v. Bourne, 8 California, 294; Hyman v. Read, 13 California, 445; Holladay v. Frisbie, 15 California, 630, 635; *406 Wheeler v. Miller, 16 California, 125; City and County of San Francisco v. Straut, 84 California, 124.
These cases all expressed under varying facts the validity of the title conveyed by the acts'of the legislature. They are re-i viewed in Pacific Gas Imp. Co. v. Ellert, 64 Fed. Rep. 421.
In Taylor v. Underhill, 40 California, 473, Mr. Justice Temple .said, speaking of lands below high water mark: “ The State can probably sell the land and authorize the purchaser to extend the water front so as to enable him to build upon this land. . . . ”
The decisions cover a period of many years and have become a rule of property and the foundation of many titles. As said by Circuit Judge Ross, delivering the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appfeals: “ A large and valuable part of thе' city of San Francisco, extending from the present water front to, in some places, Montgomery street, was at the time of and subsequent to the admission of California into the. Union, a part of thе submerged lands of the bay, but has since been filled in by many hundred, grantors under, the city and State, who have erected buildings and improvements thereon at costs running into many millions of dollars. All of this was done in aid of сommerce, in the upbuilding of a great city upon the bay, and with the encouragement and consent of the general government.”
There is nothing inconsistent with these views in
Shirley
v.
Bishop,
67 California, 545 ;
People
v.
Gold Run Ditch and Mining Co.,
66 California, 138,
151 ;
or in
Heckman
v.
Swett,
99 California, 303. In
Shirley
v.
Bishop
there was no question of riparian rights. . The defendants attempted, under a franchise from the city of Benicia, to erect a wharf within three feet of the plaintiffs wharf, and parallel to it for sixty feet in the navigable waters of the straits of Carquinez, and beyond the wаter front, established by an act of the legislature of the State. The building of the wharf was restrained. The other two cases expressed the general doctrine that the title of the State to the lаnds covered by navigable .waters is held in trust for the public. That doctrine is declared- in all of the cases. It has a conspicuous illustration in the
Lake Front Case, (Illinois Central Railroad
v.
Illinois,)
2. A claim was made in the Circuit Court of Appeals by the plaintiff in error under section 5 of the act of Congress of July 1,1861, entitled “An act to expedite the. settlement of titles to lands in the State of California.” 13 Stat. 333. By that section the title of the United States to the lands within the corporate limits of the' city of San Francisco was relinquished and granted to the city “ for the uses and purposes ” specified in a certain ordinance of the city called the Yan Ness ordinance, which ordinance had been ratified by. the legislature of the State. Answering and disposing of the contention of the plaintiff in error, the Circuit Court of Appeals said: “ Those uses and purposes . . . had no relation whatever to the rocks or islands here in controversy, which were and arе far outside of the pueblo grant of lands claimed by and confirmed to the city.” This is not contested here, but it is urged that “ the order of President McKinley may be read, not as a reservation under that act, but as an appropriation ,of Mission Island and the small island southeast thereof, with the shores, contiguous submerged land, and navigable water appurtenant thereto, permanently for naval purposes.” There are two answers to' the contention. The order' of the President explicitly designates the islands proper, and besides limits the areas appropriated to “ fourteen one hundredths of an acre and one one hundredth of an acre respectively.” At the time the order *408 was made the land in controversy had been reclaimed by the California Dry Dock Company, and upon it were “ extensive warehouses,” which had been built by that company, “and wharves erected for the accommodation of shipping.” The property was so valuable that the plaintiff in error regarded itself damaged by its withholding in the sum of $250,000, and the rental thereof was alleged to be $5000 per annum. It is not conceivable that the President, by his order, intended to appropriate so valuable a property without explicit declaration, or to leave the appropriation to result as “ appurtenant ” to the rocks.
Judgment affirmed.