180 LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
more than three hundred and thirty-five thousand square miles, or a tract 
of land more than seven times as large as the State of Pennsylvania, and 
only about six thousand miles less than the area of the thirteen original 
States. But, in fact, the grants will not realize near that quantity, and the 
estimate, as made by the Land Department, is only about one hundred and 
eighty-seven million acres. 
By the aid of those grants, however, about fifteen thousand miles of 
road have been constructed. Those roads have been the means of devel- 
oping vast fields of magnificent territory, and securing to the people many 
lesser lines built by private capital. 
The various grants have been the subject of much explanatory, amend- 
atory, and confirmatory legislation, and have also received numerous inter- 
pretations by the different courts. Of the latter, I deem it proper to refer 
only to the more important rulings of the Supreme Court which bear upon 
the fundamental principles underlying the whole system. 
In nearly all grants, except the Pacific, provision has been made for 
indemnity in ease it appeared, when the lines of the roads had been defi- 
nitely fixed, that the United States had sold, disposed of, or reserved any of 
the sections or parts of sections contained within the grants. The theory 
has heretofore existed that “indemnity” was allowed for all tracts which 
might not be found subject to the operation of the grant; and selections 
have been permitted in lieu of such disposed of or reserved tracts. 
A recent decision, however, casts some doubt upon the correctness of 
this theory. The question came up in a case from Kansas, under the act 
of March 3, 1863, and the court declared: 
“We have before said that the grant itself was in presenti, and covered 
all the odd sections which should appear, on the location of the road, to 
have been within the grant when it was made. The right to them did not, 
however, depend on such location, but attached at once on the making of 
the grant. It is true they could not be identified until the line of the road was 
marked out on the ground, but as soon as this was done it was easy to find 
them. If the company did not obtain all of them within the original limit, 
by reason of the power of sale or reservation retained by the United States, 
it was to be compensated by an equal amount of substituted lands. The 
