Congress had to decide who was responsible for paying for the survey of a railroad land grant for without a survey, the land could not be patented. Congress then had to determine when a patent could be issued and if the railroads had to apply for a patent. The courts had to rule on whether unsold lands in a railroad grant were open for preemption -- the right to settle on unsurveyed land -- as the grants themselves usually explicitly stipulated. Only in 1910 did Congress finally require railroads to deposit the money to complete the surveys of the grants.

Leslie Decker, Railroads, Lands, and Politics (Providence, RI, Brown University Press, 1964), 52, 60, 86-116.

Report of the Auditor of Railroad Accounts, House Ex. Doc. 1, 46th Congress, 2nd Session, 1911, 17-18.

Union Pacific, Assistant to President, Outgoing Correspondence, G.M. Lane to Adams, Jan. 3, 1885, v. 5 subgroup 3, ser. 1, r. 4.

Railroad objections, Adams to George Hoar, Union Pacific, President's Office, Outgoing Correspondence, v. 27, ser. 2, r. 2