Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the school commissioners, or other authority, having official cognizance over school lands within fractional township nineteen south, of range eighteen west, State of Mississippi, be, and they are hereby, authorized to select by legal subdivisions, from any of the public lands within the said State not otherwise appropriated, a quantity of land not exceeding one half section, for the use and support of schools within the said fractional township.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That when the lands hereby authorized to be selected shall have been approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, they shall be held by the inhabitants of the township herein designated by the same tenure, and upon the same terms, for the support of schools in the said township, as if they had been selected under the provisions of the general school law of the twentieth of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six: Provided, nevertheless, That the said commissioners, or other authority mentioned in the first section of this act, shall not be authorized, by any thing herein contained, to select lands out of the land district in which said fractional township is situated, if there be land within said district applicable to school purposes under the provisions of the act of May twentieth, eighteen hundred and twenty-six.

Approved, March 2, 1849.