THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 135 
enacted a law relating to disputes about boundaries, which is 
here inserted: 
CHAPTER CXXIV. 
An Act Pertaining to Shell Fishery Grounds within the Exclusive 
Jurisdiction of the State. 
Be zt enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General As- 
sembly convened: 
SECTION 1. All questions and disputes touching the ownership, 
titles, buoys, boundaries, ranges, extent, or location of any shell fishery 
grounds within the exclusive jurisdiction of the State may be referred 
to and settled by the Commissioners of Shell Fisheries, who are hereby 
empowered, on petition of any person interested therein, to summon 
all the parties in interest, so far as such parties may be made known 
to them, to appear before them at a time and place in the summons 
named, such summons to be signed by the clerk of said commission- 
ers, and served by him or such other person as the commissioners 
may direct; whereupon, at such time and place named, or any other 
time and place to which the hearing may from time to time be ad- 
journed, the party petitioner shall file a sworn statement of the facts 
as Claimed by him, to which any interested party may respond by fil- 
ing a sworn counter statement of the facts as claimed by him; and 
after hearing all the parties interested with their witnesses and coun- 
sel, the commissioners shall make their decision in writing as soon as 
convenient thereafter, which decision shall be recorded in the books 
of record in their office, and the same shall be binding on all the par- 
ties in interest so summoned or appearing, unless an appeal shall be 
taken from such decision to the Superior Court in and for the county 
where the town is situated, between whose meridian lines any portion 
of said grounds may be, within ten days after such decision shall be 
filed by said commissioners with their clerk aforesaid, and unless such 
appeal shall be prosecuted to judgment, and said decision reversed by 
said Superior Court. Said appeal may be taken in the same manner 
as appeals in civil cases from justice courts. 
SEC. 2. Every person filing a petition, statement, or counter state- 
ment, as in the foregoing section provided, shall, at the time of such 
filing. deposit ten dollars with the Commissioners of Shell Fisheries, 
who shall return to the prevailing party the sum so deposited by him, 
and shall retain the money so deposited by the defeated party as a for- 
feit to pay the expenses of the investigation, which money so retained 
shall be accounted for and paid to the State treasurer for the benefit 
of the’ State: 
