sumed to be good. The statute just referred to provides that "suits by the United States to vacate and annul any patent heretofore issued shall only be brought within five years from the passage of this act," that is to say, from March 31, 1891. This land, whether reserved or not, was public land of the United States and in kind open to sale and conveyance through the Land Department. United States v. Winona & St. Peter R. R. Co., 165 U. S. 463, 476. The patent had been issued in 1883 by the President in due form and in the regular way. Whether or not he had authority to make it, the United States had power to make it or to validate it when made, since the interest of the United States was the only one concerned. We can see no reason for doubting that the statute, which is the voice of the United States, had that effect. It is said that the instrument was void and hence was no patent. But the statute presupposes an instrument that might be declared void. When it refers to "any patent heretofore issued," it describes the purport and source of the document, not its legal effect. If the act were confined to valid patents it would be almost or quite without use. Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599.

In form the statute only bars suits to annul the patent. But statutes of limitation, with regard to land, at least, which cannot escape from the jurisdiction, generally are held to affect the right, even if in terms only directed against the remedy. Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599, 605; Sharon v. Tucker, 144 U. S. 533; Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 457. This statute must be taken to mean that the patent is to be held good and is to have the same effect against the United States that it would have had if it had been valid, in the first place. See United States v. Winona & St. Peter R. R. Co., 165 U. S. 463, 476.

We waste no time upon suggestions of bad faith on the one side or the other, as there is no sufficient warrant for them, and as they were touched rather than pressed at the argument. The only other question is whether the United States has title to the islands, notwithstanding its patent and notwith

standing the incorporation of Michigan as a State. The bill admits and alleges that the bed of the river, or strait, surrounding the islands, passed to Michigan when Michigan became a State, Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, subject to the same public trusts and limitations as lands under tide waters on the borders of the sea. Illinois. Central R. R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U. S. 387. But it sets up that the islands remained the property of the United States, and it argues that in such circumstances the islands did not pass by the patent of the neighboring land.

The act offering Michigan admission to the Union provided that no right was conferred upon the State "to interfere with the sale by the United States, and under their authority, of the vacant and unsold lands within the limits of the said State." Act of June 15, 1836, c. 99, § 4. 5 Stat. 49, 50. And again, by a condition, that the State should "never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil within the same by the United States." Act of June 23, 1836, c. 121. Fifth. 5 Stat. 59, 60. The islands are little more than rocks rising very slightly above the level of the water, and contain respectively a small fraction of an acre and a little more than an acre. They were unsurveyed and of no apparent value. We cannot think that these provisions excepted such islands from the admitted transfer to the State of the bed of the streams surrounding them. If they did not, then, whether the title remains in the State or passed to the defendant with the land conveyed by the patent, the bill must fail.

The bed of the river could not be conveyed by the patent of the United States alone, but, if such is the law of the State, the bed will pass to the patentee by the help of that law, unless there is some special reason to the contrary to be found in cases like Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois, 146 U. S. 387. This view is well established. Grand Rapids & Indiana R. R. Co. v. Butler, 159 U. S. 87, 93, 94; Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U. S. 508, 519. The right of the State to grant lands covered by tide waters or navigable lakes and the qualifications, as

stated in Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 47, are that the State may use or dispose of any portion of the same "when that can be done without substantial impairment of the interest of the public in such waters, and subject to the paramount right of Congress to control their navigation so far as may be necessary for the regulation of commerce." But it cannot be pretended that private ownership of the bed of the stream or of the islands, subject to the public rights, will impair the interest of the public in the waters of the Sault Ste. Marie. See Kaukauna Water Power Co. v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Co., 142 U. S. 254, 271, 272. Therefore, if by the law of Michigan the bed of the river or strait would pass to a grantee of the upland, we may assume that it passed to the defendant, and we may assume further that the islands also passed. If, as we think, they belonged to the State, they passed along with the bed of the river. If they had belonged to the United States, probably they would have passed as unsurveyed islands and neglected fragments pass. Whitaker v. McBride, 197 U. S. 510; Grand Rapids & Indiana R. R. Co. v. Butler, 159 U. S. 87, 91, 92. Of course other nice questions are suggested andmight be asked; for instance, how it would be if the title to the bed of the stream was in the State and did not pass with the upland, and the islands remained to the United States. It still would be a reasonable proposition that the islands followed the upland. But in the view that we have taken that may be left in doubt.

The question then is narrowed to whether the bed of the strait is held to pass by the laws of Michigan. We are content to assume that the waters are public waters. Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How. 443, 457. But whatever may be the law as to lands under the great lakes, People v. Silberwood, 110 Michigan, 103, we believe that the law still is as it was declared to be in Grand Rapids & Indiana R. R. Co. v. Butler, 159 U. S. 87, 94, that "a grant of land bounded by a stream, whether navigable in fact or not, carries with it the bed of the stream to the center of the thread thereof," and that this

applies to the Sault Ste. Marie, whatever it be called. The fact that it is a boundary has not been held to make a difference. The riparian proprietors upon it own to the center. Ryan v. Brown, 18 Michigan, 196; Scranton v. Wheeler, 113 Michigan, 565, 567; Kemp v. Stradley, 134 Michigan, 676. See also Scranton v. Wheeler, 57 Fed. Rep. 803, 812; S. C., 179 U. S. 141, 163; Lorman v. Benson, 8 Michigan, 18; Water Commissioners v. Detroit, 117 Michigan, 458, 462. We see no plausible ground for the claim of the United States.

Decree affirmed,

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissents.

LIU HOP FONG v. UNITED STATES.

ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE · DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA.

No. 181. Argued March 18, 1908.-Decided April 20, 1908.

Under the provisions of § 13 of the act of September 13, 1888, c. 1015, 25 Stat. 476 and 3 of the act of May 15, 1890, c. 60, 27 Stat. 25, the appeal given to a Chinaman from an order of deportation made by a commissioner is a trial de novo before the district judge to which he is entitled before he can be ordered to be deported, and the order cannot be made on a transcript of proceedings before the commissioner. After a commissioner has made and filed a certified transcript in the case of a Chinaman ordered by him to be deported his authority over the matter ends. There is no statutory right to make up and file additional findings. While a certificate issued as provided by § 3 of the Treaty of December, 1894 between the United States and China to entitle Chinese subjects to enter the United States may be overcome by proper evidence, and may not have the effect of a judicial determination, when a Chinaman. has been admitted to the United States on a certificate made in conformity with the treaty, he cannot be deported for having fraudulently entered the United States unless there is competent evidence to overcome the legal effect of the certificate.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

209 U.S.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Frank L. McCoy, with whom Mr. John L. Webster and Mr. Robert H. Olmsted were on the brief, for plaintiff in error:

The complaint is insufficient in substance to sustain the conviction or order of deportation, in that it does not allege facts showing fraud in defendant's coming to the United States.

In fact the issuance to plaintiff in error of his student's certificate and his subsequent admission thereunder into this country, by the officers of the government, operated as an adjudication of the bona fides and lawfulness of his coming. That decision, unappealed from, is res judicata and entitles the defendant to remain here, at least until such determination is overcome by strong competent evidence. And his changing his occupation from student to laborer, or anything else, after coming here, would not constitute such overcoming evidence or defeat his right to remain here. His right to remain depends altogether on his "coming," whether that was lawful, whether bona fide or mala fide, whether he was in fact a student and one of the student or teacher class in China, or a laborer there intending to be a laborer here. United States v. Sing Lee, 71 Fed. Rep. 680; Re Chin Ark Ning, 115 Fed. Rep. 412; Re Yew Fing Hi, 128 Fed. Rep. 319; Louie Gwen v. United States, 128 Fed. Rep. 522; United States v. Leo Won Fong, 132 Fed. Rep. 190, 195; United States v. Joe Dick, 134 Fed. Rep. 988, 989; United States v. Seid Bow, 139 Fed. Rep. 56; Tom Hong v. United States, 193 U. S. 517.

There was not sufficient evidence before the District Court to warrant or support the finding that plaintiff in error was not one of the student or teacher class in China, or that he came into the United States mala fide and fraudulently, or to sustain the order of deportation.

There is no support in the evidence for the judge's findings, except perhaps in the commissioner's additional and separate findings of December 30. And such additional findings were not competent evidence. or indeed any evidence.