A Bill Authorizing new Selections of land in lieu of worthless School Sections or Sections of inferior quality and for other purposes.

(Sec: 1). Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That in all cases in which the School, or sixteenth Section has fallen, or may hereafter fall upon irreclaimable Sea Marsh, or upon land subject to overflow or unfit for cultivation, or of inferior quality it shall and may be lawful, on satisfactory proof of the fact being made to the District Land Office, for the Authorities of the States entitled to school Sections, to select, in lieu of such worthless, or inferior Sections, or of any part thereof, an equal quantity on other lands in the same Township in which the original tract in situated, or in the nearest adjacent township in the same Land District in which good lands can be obtained, and upon the approval by the Secretary of the Treasury of the new selection under the authority of this act, the original tract shall ipso facto revert to, and become public lands of the United States.

(Sec: 2). That in view of the constitutional provisions of the State of Louisiana respecting the establishment of free schools through the state and for the reasons appearing in the memorial, as Approved on the 27^th February 1847, of the Legislature of that State, and in the Resolutions of said State as approved on the 4^th May 1847, Authority is hereby given to said State to make a common fund of all the school lands which shall be thus selected, or which shall have accrued to the State in virtue of Existing laws, to be expended as the Authorities of the State may direct, without reference to the particular township in which the lands shall be situated, and that any provision of any Act of Congress heretofore passed so far as the same relates to the State of Louisiana, and is inconsistent with the provisions of this Act be and the same is hereby repealed.