176 LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
By the omission of such language from the grants subsequently made 
from time to time to as late as 1862, the Department of the Interior 
believed that the duty of “disposal” was properly in the States charged 
with executing the trusts; and in all the earlier grants, immediately upon 
the location of the roads and determination of the limits of the grants, 
certified, in whole, the lands to which the companies would ultimately have 
been entitled had the roads been completed as required. At that time there 
was but little doubt that all of the roads would be rapidly constructed; but 
the civil conflict very naturally put a stop to such extended improvements, 
and to-day about twenty railroads remain uncompleted, and the lands 
certified to the States for their use and benefit exceed by 1,058,295.86 
acres the lands actually earned by the portions of the several roads con- 
structed. 
Out of the act of June 29, 1854, and the repealing statute a very 
interesting question arose, which received, ultimately, the consideration of 
the Supreme Court. A suit was brought in trespass by Edmund Rice 
against the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company, for cutting 
timber on a tract of land in Minnesota. The company, in its defense, set 
up title under the granting act aforesaid; to which plaintiff replied, reciting 
the repealing statute. On demurrer by the company, the question as to 
whether an interest had vested under said grant was thus fairly presented 
to the Supreme Court. That body decided, after elaborate review of the 
whole case, that the act of August 4 was “a valid law”, and that no 
interest, beneficiary or otherwise, had vested under the said grant. 
In 1856, at different times, various grants were made to the States of 
Iowa, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Mississippi, 
and on the 3d of March, 1857, to Minnesota. 
An examination of these grants—say the one to Iowa, it being first of 
the series—shows that, with the exception of the fact that the sections 
granted were designated by odd instead of even numbers, they were similar 
to the Missouri grant of 1852. The change there inaugurated was owing 
to the fact that certain even sections in each township had been previously 
given to the several States for school purposes, and in a grant embracing a 
large territory the difference to the railroad grants caused thereby would be 
