If the parties who have so modestly presented their humble petition for this concession had gone one step farther, and asked for a grant of the whole State of California—all its tide and marsh lands—the control of all its rivers, bays and inlets, we do not know that the public amazement would have been any greater.[144] Even the conservative _San Francisco Times_ suggested that it would be well for the railroad companies to submit detailed estimates of the land needed for terminals and the uses to which this land was to be put,[145] while it refrained from commenting on the _Bulletin’s_ assertions that it was the intent of the railroads to locate their terminus well south of the city of San Francisco to the great profit of parties from Sacramento who were buying lands around Hunter’s Point. Another Plan Substituted Whether or not this last accusation was well founded, the opposition of the city grew so intense that the legislature did not dare to carry out its original plan.[146] Instead, the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific were offered each 150 acres, to be located by the companies within specified limits south of Channel Street, and still later the amount was reduced to 30 acres apiece, and a donation was substituted for a sale. So amended, the act became law on March 30, 1868. It granted and donated to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and to the Western Pacific Railroad Company for a terminus in the city of San Francisco, to each of said companies, 30 acres, exclusive of streets, basements, public squares, and docks. The land was to be selected by the railroad companies within ninety days, but it was to lie south of Channel Street, and outside of the Red-Line water-front of Mission Bay, and was not to extend beyond 24 feet of water at low tide, nor to within 300 feet of the line which should be selected by the tide-land commissioners as the permanent water line of the front of the city. A 200-foot right-of-way was given to the companies to provide access to their tide-lands. The lands were to be located and $100,000 spent upon them by each of the grantees within thirty months, or the grant would revert to the state.[147] Compared with their original projects, the Act of 1868 represented a considerable check to the plans of Mr. Stanford and his friends. Yet the grant in San Francisco was important, and, added to what had been secured in Oakland, provided satisfactorily for the Central Pacific’s transportation needs.