Argument for Appellees.

This original and contemporaneous construction of the granting act by the department charged by law with the execution of the act remained unchanged for fifteen years in that department.

III. Agreeably to the settled doctrine of this court, the contemporaneous construction and effect given by the Department of the Interior to the granting act of May 4, 1870, as above stated, if not decisive, is entitled to very great weight, and should not be disregarded except for some strenuous reasons. United States v. Union Pacific Railway, 148 U. S. 562; United States v. Johnston, 124 U. S. 236; Merritt v. Cameron, 137 U. S. 542; United States v. Alabama Southern Railway, 142 U. S. 621.

The contemporaneous decision of the Secretary of the Interior in and in respect to those matters had by law the force and effect of a final and conclusive adjudication, and was binding as authority upon his successors and upon the Executive Department of the government. The rights of the grantee, in the act, as vested under that determination, could not be impaired or affected except by a proceeding directly taken for that purpose. Noble v. Union River Logging Railroad, 147 U. S. 165; United States v. Bank of the Metropolis, 15 Pet. 377; Kendall v. Stokes, 3 How. 87; Lamborn v. County Commissioners, 97 U. S. 181, 185.

IV. The act of forfeiture of January 31, 1885, must be regarded as a legislative interpretation of the granting act, involving an understanding by Congress that the granting act provided for one railroad and telegraph line, beginning at Portland, and having termini respectively at Astoria and McMinnville.

The language of the forfeiting act of 1885 is as follows: "That so much of the lands granted by an act of Congress entitled 'An act granting land to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from Portland to Astoria and McMinnville, in the State of Oregon,' approved May 4, 1870, as are adjacent to and coterminous with the uncompleted portions of said road, and not embraced within the limits of said grant for the completed portions of said road, be, and

Argument for Appellees.

the same are hereby, declared to be forfeited to the United States."

It will be perceived that for its description, and its sole description, of the railroad and telegraph line provided for by the granting act, the forfeiting act refers to the title of the granting act, which is recited in the forfeiting act and describes the railroad and telegraph line, contemplated by the granting act, as "a railroad and telegraph line from Portland to Astoria and McMinnville."

Throughout the body of the forfeiting act, the road thus described is referred to only as "said road," showing distinctly. that Congress, when it passed the forfeiting act, understood that the road which the granting act had in view was one road from Portland to Astoria and McMinnville, as expressed in the title of that act.

Congress in 1885 thus affirmed the construction of the granting act upon which the Department of the Interior had proceeded and acted in executing the provisions of that act, and expressed its understanding that such executive construction of the granting act conformed to its intention when it passed that act.

If the effect we have thus attributed to the act of 1885, as a legislative interpretation of the act of 1870, involving an understanding by Congress that the act of 1870 had in view one railroad from Portland to McMinnville, be the correct legal effect of the act of 1885, the question of the construction to be given to the act of 1870 in respect of the point here in controversy, is removed from the region of legal doubt or contestation.

V. The contemporaneous construction of the act of 1870 by the Department of the Interior, in execution of it, and the legislative interpretation of the act by Congress in 1885, were plainly correct. The provisions of the act of 1870 show clearly that Congress intended to make one grant to one company for one railroad and telegraph line "from Portland to Astoria and McMinnville," as expressed in the title of the act, and declared in the act of forfeiture of 1885.

The one railroad described in the act was to run from Port

Argument for Appellees.

land, as its initial point, to Astoria and to the Yamhill River, near McMinnville, and it was to run through a point of junction near Forest Grove; showing that what the act contemplated was a union of the tracks of this one railroad from Portland to Astoria and to the Yamhill River, near McMinnville, at a suitable point of junction near Forest Grove, one line of tracks proceeding to Astoria and another line of tracks proceeding to the Yamhill River, near McMinnville.

The road from Portland was to be bifurcated, so to speak, at a suitable point of junction near Forest Grove, and to run to Astoria and to McMinnville, thus affording communication by railroad from Portland to Astoria and McMinnville.

It is conceded that the maintenance of any other view of the meaning and intent of the act involves and requires the insertion of the words, "a railroad and telegraph line," before the words, "from a suitable point of junction near Forest Grove," etc., in the first section, so as to make the section read: "That for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a railroad and telegraph from Portland to Astoria, and [a railroad and telegraph line] from a suitable point of junction near Forest Grove to the Yamhill River, near McMinnville, in the State of Oregon, there is hereby granted," etc.

But the words referred to cannot be inserted into the statute agreeably to the settled doctrine of this court. Leavenworth, Lawrence &c. Railroad v. United States, 92 U. S. 733; Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761, and if it can be said that the words of the statute admit of any reasonable doubt as to their meaning or application, it is clearly proper that the title of the act be considered in determining the intent of Congress, agreeably to the principle so recently stated by this court in the case of Iloly Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457.

VI. It thus appears that the so-called quadrant lands in question were fully earned by the Oregon Central Railroad Company under the terms of the grant by the completion and acceptance of the second constructed section of its road from the twenty mile post, near Hillsboro, to McMinnville, as lands within the limits of the grant adjacent to and coterminous with that section.

Opinion of the Court.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

If the act of May 4, 1870, should be held to have authorized the construction of a main road from Portland to Astoria, and that the lands adjacent to, and coterminous with, such main road, on both sides, were granted in order to accomplish that purpose; and also to have authorized the construction of a branch from the main line, at a junction near Forest Grove, to McMinnville, then it would follow that all of the lands available on both sides as far as Forest Grove, and to an extent of twenty miles on each side, would be absorbed in aiding to build the main line; and so of the lands along the main line from Forest Grove to Astoria. And inasmuch as the line from Forest Grove to Astoria, and from Forest Grove, at the junction with the main line, south toward McMinnville, was, in its general bearing, at right angles to the main line from Portland to Forest Grove, the line from Portland to Forest Grove would absorb nearly all of the lands lying east of the branch line to McMinnville, and a part of the lands lying east of the line from McMinnville through Forest Grove, the point of junction, northwards toward Astoria. Hence but little could be earned for building the branch line except the lands lying west of it and south of the point of junction at Forest Grove, and none of the land lying north of a line drawn from Portland through Forest Grove could be held to have been within the contemplation of the act as donated for the purpose of building a branch road from the junction to McMinnville.

In this aspect, as no road was built from Forest Grove toward Astoria, substantially all that was earned was the land lying within the twenty mile limits on each side of the main road from Portland to Forest Grove, and the land lying west of the McMinnville branch and south of a line drawn from Portland through Forest Grove; and all of the lands lying in the quadrant north and west of Forest Grove were unearned lands, and forfeited under the act of January 31, 1885. These lands "are adjacent to and coterminous with the uncompleted portions of said road, and not embraced within the limits of

Opinion of the Court.

said grant for the completed portions of said road." But although a part of the lands lying east of this quadrant “are adjacent to and coterminous with the uncompleted portions of said road," yet they are "embraced within said grant for the completed portions of said road," for they lie within the twenty mile limits of the completed portion from Portland to Forest Grove.

The railroad companies contend that no such thing as a branch road or a junction in the ordinary sense of the word was contemplated, and that, having a right to build from Portland to Astoria, and "from a suitable point of junction near Forest Grove to the Yamhill River near McMinnville," they could treat the act as if it authorized the building of a continuous road from Portland via Forest Grove to McMinnville, without regard to the provisions for a road beyond Forest Grove to Astoria; and, by constructing their road with a curve at Forest Grove, could properly claim all of the lands falling within twenty miles of this circuitous route from Portland to McMinnville as intended to be granted for the construction of such a road. And, having actually so built, that they were entitled to all the lands lying within a quadrant produced by a radius reaching twenty miles from the curve.

Secretary Lamar rejected this contention and held that the act of May 4, 1870, contemplated two distinct roads, a road from Portland to Astoria, and a road from Forest Grove to McMinnville; that the words "point of junction" were to be given their usual meaning of a point where two or more roads join; that had the words of forfeiture "so much of the lands granted as are adjacent to and coterminous with the uncompleted portion of said road," been unqualified, the line dividing the forfeited lands from those not forfeited would have been drawn through Forest Grove at right angles to the unconstructed road at that point and terminating at the lateral limits of the grant, but that as this would have thrown out of the grant large tracts of lands that were opposite to the constructed portions of the road, Congress qualified the words of forfeiture by adding "and not embraced within the limits