“ It is not at all unreasonable to say that very probably Congress had in mind this general system of division of the public lands, and that the word 'adjacent' would properly be interpreted with respect thereto. If the word 'adjoining' had been used instead of 'adjacent,' those sections touching the line of the road could be regarded as the adjoining lands, and when the word 'adjacent' instead of 'adjoining' is used, it might, not unnaturally, be said to include the next tier of sections away from the line of the road. ”

“ As Congress has not given the definition of adjacent, such as has been adopted by any of the lower courts, we cannot, even by a so-called liberal construction, enlarge the ordinary meaning of the word to the extent made necessary in order to justify this cutting.
We cannot take, for the reasons already stated, the fact of wagon road transportation as a means of deciding whether the lands are or are not adjacent, for it seems to us that it may lead us far beyond any reasonable limit to the word. The same may be said as to the benefits to the land by the building of the road. ”

“ We thus have the authority of this court that lands which are adjacent within the meaning of this act of 1875 must be lands in proximity, contiguous or near to, the line of the road. While 'proximity' or 'nearness' to an object is somewhat uncertain as a measure of distance, yet the use of such words as a definition brings to the mind the idea that lands which are in fact far off, or distant, are not adjacent. ”