Probably no grant of this character has received such widespread notoriety as the one for the improvement of the Des Moines River. It is owing, no doubt, in a great degree to the numerous conflicting decisions by the Executive Departments touching the extent of the grant. The Hon. R. J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury (under whose supervision the Land Office then came), decided on the 2d of March, 1849, that the grant extended above the tributary of the Des Moines River commonly known as the Raccoon Fork. The Land Office soon thereafter passed from the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, and was placed as one of the bureaus of the Home or Interior Department. The Secretary of this lately established branch of the Government (Hon. Thomas Ewing) decided on the 6th of April, 1850, that the grant did not extend above the Raccoon Fork. From that decision the State of Iowa appealed to the President, who laid the matter before the Attorney-General. That officer (Hon. Reverdy Johnson), on July 19, 1850, expressed an opinion confirmatory of the decision of Secretary Walker. The Secretary of the Interior, however, being determined in his views, did not adopt the opinion of the Attorney-General, and the Commissioner of the General Land Office wrote, under date of 26th September, 1850, to the President, reviewing and objecting to the opinion of Mr. Johnson. The President, having been again applied to by the State of Iowa to determine the matter, referred the whole question to the Attorney-General (then Hon. J. J. Crittenden). That officer, without delivering an opinion on the merits of the case, expressed the belief that the President ought not to interfere, but should leave such questions to the proper officers. The then Secretary of the Interior (Hon. A. H. H. Stuart) thereupon decided that the grant did not extend above the fork, but subsequently decided to approve the selections for lands above the fork. Attorney-General Cushing, on the 29th of May, 1856, expressed the belief that on the merits of the case the grant was limited to the Raccoon Fork, but as Secretary Stuart had approved selections above that point, such practical enforcement of the grant had better be continued. The view of Mr. Cushing was subsequently maintained by the Supreme Court of the United States in Railroad Company _vs._ Litchfield. (23 Howard, page 66). By the act of Congress approved July 12, 1862, the grant was extended to the northern boundary of the State, so as to include the alternate odd numbered sections lying within five miles of said river, upon the following conditions: The lands were to be held and applied in accordance with the provisions of the original grant, except that the consent of Congress was given to the application of “a portion thereof” to aid in the construction of the Keokuk, Fort Des Moines and Minnesota Railroad, in accordance with the provisions of an act of the general assembly of the State approved March 22, 1858.