1. Public Lands — Chant to Southern Pacific Railroad Company — Scope of Grant of 1871.

The proviso attached to the grant of lands to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company for the construction of. a branch lino by section 23 of Act March 8, 1871 (10 Stat. 573), that such grant should “in no way affect or impair the rights, present or prospective, of the Atlantic and Pacific, Railroad Company, or any other railroad company,” excluded frim such grant all lands to which, at the time the Southern Pacific Company filed the map of the definite location of its branch line, the Texas Pacific Railroad Company had acquired a prospective right under the same act by the filing of the map of its general route, and which were thereupon, as required by the act, withdrawn from the market by an executory order.

8. Same — Construction of Grants — Definite Location of Road.

A line of railroad is not “definitely fixed,” within the meaning of an act granting lands on either side of such line to aid in its construction, so as to determine the exterior limits of the grant, and prevent the lands from being granted to or earned by another company, until it has been definitely located on the ground, and such location approved by the action of the company, so that it cannot thereafter be changed at its option, and a map of such location filed with the government in the usual and proper manner.

3. Same — Texas Pacific Line in California.

The line of road of the Texas Pacific Railroad Company was never “definitely fixed” in the state of California on the route surveyed between Yuma and San Diego by way of the San Gorgonio Pass, so as to give that company any prospective right to the lands adjacent to such line under the grant made by Act March 3, 1871 (16 Stat. 573), which would prevent such lands from passing to the Southern Pacific Company under the grant to that company made by the same act, where such lands were within the limits of its grant as fixed by the location and construction of its road.

4. Same — Variance from Route Designated in Act

The act incorporating the Texas Pacific Railroad Company, and making it a grant of lands to aid in the construction of its road, which required it to construct the western section of its road from a point on the Colorado river at or near the southeastern boundary of California to San Diego, “pursuing in the location thereof, as near as may be, the thirty-second parallel of north latitude,” did not authorize the construction of its road on the line surveyed between such points by way of the San Gorgonio Pass, near the thirty-fourth parallel; and the selection of such route, even if the line had been definitely fixed thereon, would not have given the company any prospective right to the lands adjacent, under the act.