where such land is located a profile of its road; and upon approval thereof by the Secretary of the Interior the same shall be noted upon the plats in said office; and thereafter all such lands over which such a right of way shall pass shall be disposed of subject to such right of way; provided, that if any section of said road shall not be completed within five years after the location of said section, the rights herein granted shall be forfeited as to any such uncompleted section of said toad.” U.S. Comp. St. §§ 4921, 4924.
Prior to the initiation of any right here involved, the Land Department put in force certain regulations to be followed by railroad companies desiring to secure the benefits of a grant in advance of actual construction, as provided by the fourth section of the act. One of these required that upon the location of any section, not exceeding 20 miles in length, the company should file with the register of the land district in which the land lay “a map for the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, showing the termini of such portion and its route over the public lands,” etc. Another of these departmental regulations provided that—
“Tf the company desires to avail itself of the provisions of the law which grants the use of ground adjacent to the right of way for station buildings * * * it must file for approval, in each separate instance, a plat showing, in connection with the public surveys, the surveyed limits and area of the ground desired.”
These regulations require that “a copy” of the approved map of “definite location,” and of the “approved plat of ground selected by a company, under the act in question, for station purposes,” shall be transmitted to the register of the land office where the land lies. Upon the receipt of the map of alignment, the land office is required “to mark upon the township plats the line of the route of the road as laid down on the map,” and to note in pencil on the tract books opposite the tract of public land cut by said lines of railroad “that the same is disposed of subject to the right of way,” etc., and to write upon the face of any certificate disposing of said lands, after the filing of such approved map of location, “that it is allowed subject to the right of way.” A like duty is put upon the register when an approved station ground plat is received. Stalker v. Oregon S. L. R. Co., 225 U. S. 142, 147, 32 Sup. Ct. 636, 56 L. Ed. 1027, 1030.
Did the railway company acquire title to the tracts in controversy under the above-quoted statutory provisions and the rules and regulations
