lands. Such was the case of Bardon v. Northern Pacific Railroad Company, 145 U.S. 535. But it is evident that such exceptions and reservations of one grant do not apply and control a second grant, unless such second grant is specially stated to be within them. When the second grant in question in this case was made, all the rights which the United States had in the lands described therein passed to the Southern Pacific Company, subject only to the rights specially reserved of the first grantee, and released of all restrictions upon their use except as thus designated. Until something was done under the first grant towards its execution, it was competent for Congress to give effect to other grants and to limit the extent of theirrepeal the act making the grant, may change the whole condition of the lands.
From these views it would seem that the questions arising in this case should not be difficult of solution. Before anything was done under the grant to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, even to indicate the route of the road it would construct, authority was issued by the government to the Southern Pacific Company to build a road north from a point at or near Tehachapa Pass, by way of Los Angeles, to the Texas and Pacific Railroad at or near the Colorado River, with a proviso, however, that the authority thus given should not in any respect impair the rights, present or prospective, of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company or of any