Report of the Secretary of State to the Governor ... of the Transactions of the Land Department

stead laws of the United States, subsequent to the time at which, by the decision of the land office, the right of said road was declared to have attached, to such lands, the grantees, upon a proper relinquishment of the lands so entered or filed for, shall be entitled to select an equal quantity of other lands in lieu thereof, from any of the public lands not mineral and within the limits of grant not otherwise appropriated at the date of selection, to which they shall receive title the same as though originally granted. And any such entries or filings, thus relieved from conflict, may be perfected into complete title as if such lands had not been granted; provided, that nothing herein contained shall in any manner be so construed as to enlarge or extend any grant to any such railroad, or to extend to lands reserved in any land grant made for railroad purposes; and provided further, that t is act shall not be construed so as in any manner to confirm or legalize any decision or ruling of the Interior Department, under which lands have been certified to any railroad company, when such lands have been entered by a pre-emption or homestead settler, after the location of the line of the road, and prior to the notice to the local land office of the withdrawal of such lands from market. Approved June 22, 1874.

Before the issuing of patents to the Iowa Falls & Sioux City Railroad Company under act of the General Assembly, approved April 7, 1868, the quantity to be conveyed was determined by taking the aggregate number of acres approved and certified to the State by the Department of the Interior for building the road from Dubuque to Sioux City, including the Tete des Morts branch, and after deducting therefrom the lands set apart for the Tete des Morts branch and some twelve or thirteen hundred acres more, part of which were released to the United States, and part taken under the pre-emption laws. Said Company was awarded as its share of the balance, an amount in proportion as the length of its road was to the whole length of the road from Dubuque to Sioux City.

In the aggregate aforesaid were included the odd sections in the five miles limit of the Des Moines river, which had been approved and certified under the grant, and the reason why they were thus included, was because the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad Company was still claiming them as part of their grant, and was expecting a confirmation of title to them in the courts. When the courts finally decided against their claim to said lands, said Company brought suit against the Iowa Falls & Sioux City Railroad Company for a part of the lands patented by the State to that Company. At length, by mutual agreement between the two companies, the court before whom suit was pending, appointed a Master Commissioner to make a division between said

Companies of the lands certified for constructing the road from Dubuque to Sioux City, and which were supposed to inure to them under the laws of the State, which was accordingly done by said Commissioner under the instructions as given by the court.

We have no record of said division, but we understand that it was made by deducting from the aggregate number of acres certified under the grant, the following lands to-wit: The lands conveyed by the State to the Dubuque, Bellevue & Mississippi Railway Company for constructing the Tete des Morts branch, the odd sections in the five miles limit of the Des Moines river, (except those in townships 89 and 90, ranges 28 and 29, on the west side of said river,) and a few tracts taken under the pre-emption laws of the United States, and then dividing the balance between the two companies in proportion to the number of miles of road built by each.

On May 20, 1875, the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad Company and the Iowa Falls & Sioux City Railroad Company, entered into an agreement which they claim is a full, final and complete adjustment of all questions of difference between said companies growing out of, or in any manner connected with the grant for said roads. In this agreement a line of division between the lands of the two companies has been established. The Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad Company's lands lie on the east, and the Iowa Falls & Sioux City Railroad Company's lands on the west of said line.

This line is not only intended as a line of division of the lands already certified, but of those that may be certified under the grant for building the road from Dubuque to Sioux City.

Said division line is about one mile east of the west line of Range thirty-six.

A copy of the aforesaid agreement is on file in this office.

SUPPLEMENTAL LISTS OF RAILROAD LANDS.

The following are supplemental lists of Railroad Lands approved and certified by the Department of the Interior under Acts of Congress of May 15, 1856, and June 2, 1854, which have been received at this Office since our last Biennial Report:

BURLINGTON & MISSOURI RIVER RAILROAD.

APPROVED BY THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR TO THE STATE OF IOWA, UNDER ACT OF MAY 15, 1856.