without objection, pronounces judgment thereon upon the merits, it will then be too late for the defendant to raise any technical objection based upon the form of the action: Hooper v. Henry, 31 Minn. 264; Mitchell v. McFarland, 47 Minn. 535. The reasoning of these later cases is, in our judgment, unassailable, and we therefore rule that all questions arising out of the tax sales and certificates of 1888 and 1889 were properly before the trial court, and are therefore before this court for review.

After a trial before the court numerous findings of law and fact were filed. It was admitted at the trial, and the court found, that the assessment-roll of Barnes county, as returned in each of the years, was in the "words, letters, figures, and form" as follows: [See opposite page]

114 Against the objection of plaintiff's counsel, who excepted to the ruling and assigns error upon it in this court, the defendant served an amended answer, which, among other allegations, contained the following: "That said abbreviations and combination of letters and figures were in general use in Barnes county, North Dakota, and throughout the state of North Dakota, and throughout those parts of the United States where the government system of survey is used, for the description of parts of sections of land, and were generally understood by the people and taxpay ers of said Barnes county, and the state of North Dakota, and in those portions of the United States where the gov ernment system of survey of lands is used, and where, when applied to descriptions of lands, abbreviations of said descriptions of halves and quarters of sections and smaller subdivisions. That the said figure placed at the right, and opposite the upper portion of the proper letter indication, east, west, north, or south, is generally used and generally understood throughout the state of North Dakota, and throughout those portions of the United States in which said government system of survey is used, as meaning 'one-half' when applied to descriptions of land; and the said figure placed at the right, and opposite the upper right-hand por tions of the abbreviations NE, SE, SW, or NW, when applied to descriptions of land, is generally used and understood throughout the state of North Dakota, and those portions of the United States where the said government system. of survey is used, as meaning 'one-quarter,' and the said figure and the said figure are so as aforesaid used and

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understood in place of the fractions one-half and one-fourth. That said abbreviations and combinations of letters and figures are uniformly used by this plaintiff in describing parts of sections of land, and were at the time of said assessment well understood by him. That said abbreviations and combinations of letters and figures are in general use in the general land-offices of the United States, and in the landoffice in the district in which said Barnes county is situated, and in the offices of the various auditors, treasurers, and 115 registers of deeds throughout the state of North Dakota, and have been so used since the organization of said local land-offices and since the organization of said county, and have been so used by the occupants of said lands in correspondence with reference to the same, and are more frequently used than any other abbreviations or combinations of letters and figures to indicate parts of sections of land."

The case was tried by the court, and at the trial defendant's witnesses upon the question of usage were not crossexamined, and plaintiff offered no rebutting evidence on that branch of the case. The court found for the defendant upon the question of usage, and made its findings of facts substantially in the language of the amended answer, as above set out. Plaintiff excepted to such findings as follows: The evidence does not show a uniform usage; it only tends to show that such characters are known and used for private convenience by a class of experts. The evidence upon the question of usage is in the record. The trial court held that said descriptions of the several tracts of land were sufficient, and that the taxes based thereon were regular and valid taxes; but also found that certain irregularities occurred as to the sales which rendered the sales illegal, and adjudged that all of the sales were illegal, and that the tax deeds and certificates fell with the sales upon which they were made. Judgment was entered accordingly. Both parties appeal from the judgment.

The pivotal question presented is this: Was it proper and allowable, under established principles of law, for the defendant to allege and attempt to show, by testimony offered in the trial court, that the symbol writing as used in the assessment-rolls was and is "generally understood by the people and taxpayers of said Barnes county and the state of North Dakota, and in those portions of the United States where the gov ernment system of survey of land is used." We remark, first,

that in a case recently decided (Powers v. Larabee, 2 N. Dak. 141) this court, after a very careful consideration, held that descriptions essentially the same as those appearing here were insufficient. In that 116 case we said: "We hold that the alleged description is wholly insufficient as a description. of the lands in question, or of any lands, and that it cannot be sustained as a means of identifying the lands for purposes of assessment for taxation, or for the ulterior purpose of transferring the title of the realty from the general owner to the tax-title holder and his successors in interest. The alleged description is neither written out in words, nor is the same expressed by charters or abbreviations commonly used by conveyances, or generally understood and used by the people at large in describing land. The description of realty placed in the assessment-roll is the means of identifying or describing the land for all the subsequent steps in the process of taxation and sale, if a sale is made. The official who makes the tax-list and duplicate and the official who collects the tax, or sells and conveys the land, or certifies to its redemption from sale, are governed by the original description in the roll, and are not authorized by law to change the same"; citing Keith v. Hayden, 26 Minn. 212. There has no case been cited, and we know of none, which directly passes upon the sufficiency of the particular descriptions in question aside from those we have mentioned. No authority can be shown, we think, which sustains such descriptions, and it is significant (in view of the claim made by defendant's counsel that such descriptions are in general and common use, not only in this state but in all states where the government system of land surveys exists) that the validity of such descriptions has never been drawn into review in the courts of last resort except in the two cases cited, and then only to be condemned as unauthorized by general usage. In the cases cited no evidence was introduced tending to prove or disprove the existence of the alleged general usage in question, and yet both courts declared and held, distinctly and emphatically, that no such general usage did exist. In Keith v. Hayden, 26 Minn. 212, the court says: "There is no general usage of this kind; neither is this the import of the letters and figures employed, according to the common and ordinary usage of the English language, as the same is spoken or written 117 in this state, or in general, nor as it is used in the judg ments of courts." In Powers v. Larabee, 2 N. Dak. 141, this

court used the following language: "The description is not expressed in common language; nor are the characters and abbreviations employed such as are used by conveyancers in describing real estate; nor do the people generally use such a combination of words, letters, and figures in referring to or describing land." It is elementary that courts will take judicial notice of the vernacular language of the people and of its mutations, and hence will take notice whether given words, letters, and figures which are brought to the notice of the court are or are not couched in the ordinary language in use by the court and people. In the cases cited the holding was in effect that the arbitrary combinations of letters and figures, as used in the respective assessment-rolls, is not the language of the court or country, i. e., is not the English language as commonly used. An inspection of the symbol writing will at once show the correctness of this view. The figure 2, according to its established meaning, represents two units or whole numbers, and the figure 4 represents four units or whole numbers. As employed in the assessment-rolls, ' is made to signify one-half of one whole number, and onefourth of a whole number. Thus it appears that the symbols in question consist of a combination of letters and figures whereby such letters and figures are perverted from their established signification and use among the people, and made to signify something radically different when used to describe land. It is a matter of which this court will take notice, because a matter of common knowledge, that the government system of surveying land has been quite generally adopted in the western states, and that the system prevails in the states of North Dakota and Minnesota; and yet, as has been shown, the courts of last resort in the two states mentioned have taken judicial cognizance of the fact, and so held that the symbol writing in question, as a mode of describing land, has not the sanction of general usage in either of the said states. In view of these adjudications-that of Powers v. Larabee, 2 N. Dak. 141, being very recent and made after 118 mature deliberation-we think it would be unwise to hold that evidence is admissible to prove only such facts as the court would be bound to judicially note without proof, if such facts really exist. If it be true that the symbol writing is, as alleged by the answer, used in describing land, and "generally understood" by the taxpayers and the people of North Dakota and throughout the western states, the judges and courts of such states