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48 NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS

of the land department incident thereto? The trial court answered this question in the negative, and we are constrained to agree with this view. Whatever title the plaintiff has rests upon the filing and approval of the plat. For, clearly there was no such act on the part of the railway company in dealing with or utilizing the premises as would constitute an appropriation by the railway company of any of the parcels in controversy here for station grounds, assuming that station grounds may be secured by the actual use thereof by the railway company for such purpose. Stalker v. Oregon S. L. R. Co., 225 U. S. 142, 147, 32 Sup. Ct. 636, 56 L. Ed. 1027. It will be noted that the plat was not filed within 12 months after the location and construction of the railroad, nor was it filed within 12 months after the lands had been surveyed by the United’ States. Whether land may be selected under the provisions of the act after the lapse of such time we find it unnecessary to decide. For, assuming that lands may be selected after the period of time fixed in the statute has expired, we do not believe that title was vested in the railroad company to the tracts in question here. The railway company acquired no rights except such as the Secretary of the Interior by his approval purported to grant. Stalker v. Oregon S. L. R. Co., supra. And it will be noted that when the plat was presented to the officers of the local land office on July 18, 1900, they made an indorsement thereon, specifically showing that the 4o-acre tract, the title to which lies at the foundation of this lawsuit, was not vacant. In other words, the indorsement of the officers of the local land office was in legal effect that such tract was no longer a part of the public domain. 32 Cyc. 948. This indorsement was on the plat presented to the Secretary of the Interior. He was specifically informed that the tract in controversy here was not subject to disposal by him under the provisions of the act, and the language in which his approval is couched shows that he was fully aware that he could not grant the application of the railway company as made, and he did not purport to do so. It is our judgment, therefore, that the Secretary of the Interior intended to and did approve the application only in so far as the lands claimed by the railroad company were (according to the information then before the Secretary of the Interior) subject to disposal by him under the provisions of the act, and that he had no intention to and did not approve of the application for station grounds on the tracts of land which the indorsement of the officers of the local land office said were not