Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/384

 per mile arising from the non-existence of such quahtity of land within forty miles of the line on each side, and where the grant overlaps large meandering bodies of water. Subject to these modifications, the grant is one in quantity; that is, it grants to the Northern. Pacific Railroad Company an amount of land equal to the amount of land included within odd-numbered sections within the limits of a belt forty miles in width on each side of the line of the road, provided that amount can be found within the limits of a belt fifty miles in width on each side of said line; the lands within the forty-mile limit to be first exhausted. The quantity granted is further subject to a reduction by the existence of the state of facts contemplated in the first proviso: “That if said route shall be found upon the line of any other railroad route, to aid in the construction of which lands have heretofore been granted by the United States, as far as the routes are upon the same general line the amount of lands heretofore granted shall be deducted from the amount granted by this act.” To this extent the amount of lands granted to the plaintiff is reduced.

By the joint resolution approved May 31, 1870 (16 St. p. 378), congress, anticipating that plaintiff would find difficulty in securing the amount of land granted within the limits designated in the act of July 2, 1864, provided that, “in the event of there not being in any state or territory in which said main line or branch may be located, at the time of the final location thereof, the amounts of land per mile granted by congress to said company, within the limits prescribed by its charter, then said company shall be entitled, under the directions of the secretary of the interior, to receive so many sections of land belonging to the United States, and designated by odd numbers, in said territory or state, within ten miles on each side of said road, beyond the limits prescribed in said charter, as. will make up such deficiency on said line or branch, except mineral and other lands, as excepted in the charter of said company of 1864, to the amount of the lands that have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of subsequent to the passage of the act of July 2, 1864.” The phrase in this resolution, “the amount of lands per mile granted