8 rsnrmar. nsronrma, vol. 38.
company attached to the particular odd sections, and became specific and
indefeasible. In UZ S. v. M:Laughlin, 127 U. S. 428, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1177, (decided at the last term of the supreme court,) it was held, after
the most mature consideration, that, in case of a floating Mexican grant of
a specific quantity of land within large exterior bounds, the lands within
such exterior boundaries are public lands, subject to a railroad grant, there
being sufficient left to satisfy the iioat; and that the said act of 1862 took
· effect upon the odd sections of land within such exterior boundaries as
were not finally required to satisfy the float; thus very materially limit-
ing the operation of the prior decision in Akwhall v. Sanger. That is pre-
cisely this case; and the same act of 1862 granted to the same company
all the odd sections within the exterior boundaries of the Las Pocitas
grant, embracing ten or more leagues within the prescribed limits and
conditions not required to satisfy the float of two leagues, which has
since been finally located so as to exclude the lands in question. Under
this decision, then, the railroad company, by the acts of 1862 and 1864,
had a valid grant to every odd section of land within twenty miles on
each side of the road, and within the exterior bounds of the Las Pocitas
grant, not embraced within the two leagues as it was finally located,
"not sold, .reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and
to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have attached at '
the time the line of said road is definitely fixed." 12 St. 492,§ 3.
The lands in question are odd sections within the prescribed limits, and
are not embraced in the Las Pocitas grant as finally patented. These
lands, therefore, upon completion of the road, passed to the railroad com-
pany, unless some one of the rights specified in the statute had attached
before the attaching of the right of the company. Section 7 of the act
provides that the "said company shall designate the general route of said
, road, as near as may be, and shall file a map of the same in the depart-
ment of the interior, whereupon the secretary of the interior shall cause
the lands within fifteen miles of said designated route or routes to be
withdrawn from pre-emption, private entry, or sale." ~ Id. 493. This
map of general location was Hled in the oflice ofthe secretary of the in-
terior on December 8, 1864, and on December 23, 1864, the secretary
issued an order in pursuance of the acts of congress, as they then were,
withdrawing for 25 miles on each side of the designated line "from sale,
t location, pre—emption and homestead," and forwarded it, together with
a map showing the location and lands withdrawn, to theregister of the
land-ofhce of the district embracing the lands where it was received,
filed and promulgated on January 30, 1865; from which date at the
latest, no right other than that of the railroad company, could be ac-
quired or initiated in any of said odd sections of land. If, then, no right
of the kind specified by the statute had legally attached to the lands in •
question before the 30th of January, 1865, none could thereafter attach
in favor of the state by selection, listing over by the land department, or
otherwise, nor could congress even authorize any subsequent legal trans-
fer of title; The grant to the railroad company was a present grant upon
conditions subsequent, which could only be defeated by breach of con-