Opinion of the Court. answer this question satisfactorily it is necessary to consider the power of this company under its charter, and the manner in which it attempted to exercise this power. The act of 1869 of the legislature of Louisiana, incorporating the Baton Rouge Company, authorized it (sec. 13) to obtain from any parish or other municipality any rights, privileges or franchises that such municipality might choose to grant in reference to the construction of the road: and by section 14, it was authorized to borrow money or to purchase property for the purpose of constructing the road, to issue its corporate bonds, and, to secure the payment of such bonds, to mortgage its road, etc. By section 15, provision was made for a second mortgage guaranteed by the State, and for bonds to be issued and made payable to the State or bearer. By section 16, the first mortgage that should be given was declared to be a prior lien upon the railroad within the State, including all the "real and personal estate within the State of Louisiana, appurtenant to, or necessary for the operation of said main line of railroad, owned by the company at the date of said mortgage, or which may be acquired by it thereafter; and upon the corporate franchises and privileges of said company, granted by the State of Louisiana, relative to the construction, operation and use of said main line of railroad within the State of Louisiana," etc. The mortgage did not differ materially from this act, though its description of property covered by it is still more explicit, and is as follows: "About five hundred and one miles of railroad within the said State of Louisiana, together with the right of way, road-bed, rails, depots, stations, shops, buildings, machinery, tools, engines, cars, tenders and other rolling stock; also all the real and personal estate within the State of Louisiana owned by the said company at the date of this mortgage, or which may be acquired by it thereafter, appurtenant to, or necessary for the operation of said main line of said railroad or any of said branches connected with the said main line, or to be connected therewith; also all other property, real and personal, of every kind and description whatsoever and wherever situated in the State of Louisiana which is now owned or which shall hereafter be acquired by the said company, and Opinion of the Court. which shall be appurtenant to or necessary or used for the operation of said main line of railroad, or of any of said branches; also the tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging, and all of the estate, right, title and interest, legal and equitable, of the said company and its successors and assigns therein, together with the corporate franchises and privileges of said company at any time granted or to be granted by the State of Louisiana relative to the construction, operation and use of said railroad within said State." The bonds issued under this mortgage contained a similar description of the property, the latter clause of such description, however, purporting to include "the corporate franchises and privileges of said company granted by the State of Louisiana or by act of Congress, relative to the construction," etc. How these words, "or by act of Congress," came to be inserted in the bonds does not appear; it may have been an oversight, or the company may have supposed that the land grant would. be acquired and that the insertion of these words would impart additional currency to the bonds. It is not material, however, to determine why or how this was done, since neither the act of the legislature nor the mortgage itself assumed in terms to cover anything granted by the act of Congress. The language of the act of the legislature and of the mortgage itself restricts its lien to real and personal property situated in the State of Louisiana, then owned or which should thereafter be acquired, and which should be appurtenant to, or necessary, or used for the operation of the main line of said road, or any of its branches. The succeeding clause, which includes tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging, etc., was manifestly not intended as an expansion of the prior clause, and for the purposes of this case may be treated as superfluous. No argument is needed to show that a land grant is not necessary to the operation of a railroad; it may be a necessary aid in the construction of a road, but it is certainly not necessary in its operation. Plaintiff's contention, then, if supportable at all, must be upon the theory that the land grant was appurtenant to the road, not necessa Opinion of the Court. rily to its operation, but to the road itself. The word " appurtenant," as ordinarily defined, is that which belongs to or is connected with something else to which it is subordinate or less worthy, and with which it passes as an incident, such as an easement or servitude to land; the tackle, apparel, rigging and furniture to a ship; a right of common to a pasture; or a barn, garden or orchard to a house or messuage. In a strict legal sense it is said that land can never be appurtenant to land, Jackson v. Hathaway, 15 Johns. 447, 454; Leonard v. White, 7 Mass. 6; Woodhull v. Rosenthal, 61 N. Y. 382; but it was evidently contemplated by this mortgage that real as well as personal property subsequently acquired, such as land for stations, machine shops or other purposes immediately connected with the road, should pass under the lien of the mortgage. Property, however, not connected with what is ordinarily termed the plant, or not forming a part of the organic structure of the road, is never treated as appurtenant to it. Thus in Humphreys v. McKissock, 140 U. S. 304, decided at the last term of this court, it was held that a railroad company joining in the construction of an elevator upon land not belonging to it, and situated at some distance from its road, did not by its ownership of stock in the elevator company acquire such an interest in it as would pass as an appurtenance under the mortgage of the road, as constructed or to be constructed, and the "appurtenances thereunto belonging." The court went further, and held that the elevator itself, if owned by the company, would not be appurtenant to its road. In line with this are the earlier cases of Harris v. Elliott, 10 Pet. 25, holding that the soil and freehold of a street did not pass as appurtenant to a lot of land fronting upon such street. So in Linthicum v. Ray, 9 Wall. 241, it was said that the right to use a wharf would not pass as appurtenant to a lot, as it was not in any way connected with the enjoyment or use of the lot, and a right not so connected could not be annexed as an incident to land so as to become appurtenant to it. In Smith v. McCullough, 104 U. S. 25, a mortgage executed by a railroad company upon its then and thereafter to be acquired property contained a specific description of such property, and was Opinion of the Court. held not to cover municipal bonds issued to it in building the road, which were not embraced in such description. And in Bank v. Tennessee, 104 U. S. 493, where a bank was required by its charter to pay a certain tax in lieu of all other taxes, and was authorized to purchase and hold a lot of ground for its use "as a place of business," and hold such real property as might be conveyed to it to secure its debts, it was held that the immunity from taxation extended only to so much of the building as was required by the actual needs of the bank in carrying on its business. See also Tucker v. Ferguson, 22 Wall. 527. Analogous cases in the state courts are numerous. Thus in Parish v. Wheeler, 22 N. Y. 494, it was held that canal boats purchased with the funds of a railroad company, and used and run by it in connection with its railroad, but beyond its terminus, were not covered by a mortgage of its engines, cars, etc.," and all other personal property in any way belonging or appertaining to the railroad of said company." So in Boston & New York Air Line Railroad v. Coffin, 50 Connecticut, 150, the property mortgaged by the railroad company was described very nearly in the terms employed in the mortgage under consideration, and it was held that lands purchased by the company outside of the lay-out of the road, and not needed for its use or construction, were not covered by the mortgage. It was said in the opinion, that "lands purchased and sold at a profit, although the profit might be expended in the construction of the road, were never intended to be embraced by the phrase, acquired by the company for the purposes of the railroad." In Mississippi Valley Co. v. Chicago, St. Louis & New Orleans Railroad, 58 Mississippi, 846, a railroad mortgage covering property thereafter to be acquired was confined to such as was appurtenant to or necessary for building or operating the road, and carrying out the purposes for which it was created, and was held not to include a hotel and brick storehouse, some vacant town lots and a farm of three hundred acres; the hotel being used as a railroad eating-house, and the other property being rented out for the several purposes for which it was adapted. In Meyer Opinion of the Court. v. Johnston, 53 Alabama, 237, S. C. 64 Alabama, 603, a mortgage of a railroad and "all other property now owned, and which may be hereafter owned by the railroad company," was held not to cover a land grant of the United States made by an act of Congress subsequently passed. Other cases to the same purport are: Shamokin Valley Railroad Co. v. Livermore, 47 Penn. St. 465; Dinsmore v. Racine &c. Railroad Company, 12 Wisconsin, 725; Farmers' Loan &c. Company v. Commercial Bank, 11 Wisconsin, 207; S. C. 15 Wisconsin, 424; Morgan v. Donovan, 58 Alabama, 241; Walsh v. Barton, 24 Ohio St. 28; Calhoun v. Memphis & Paducah Railroad, 2 Flippin, 442; Seymour v. Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Railroad, 25 Barb. 284. A consideration of the circumstances attending and following the execution of this mortgage strengthens the inference that we have drawn from it, that the land grant was not intended to be included. There is no allegation in the bill that the parties to this mortgage expected, or had any reason to expect that the land grant would be made; and had it been intended to include so important an item, it is scarcely possible that the mortgagor would have left such intention to be inferred from the indefinite and ambiguous language of this instrument. Nor is there any evidence that, after the act of Congress was passed, the line of the road was ever definitely fixed, as contemplated by section 9 of the act of March 3, 1871, 16 Stat. c. 122, 573, 576, although it had filed a map designating the general route of the road pursuant to sections 12 and 22, and obtained an order from the Secretary of the Interior withdrawing from entry and sale the odd-numbered sections of land within the grant and indemnity limits. As the grant was, by section 9, of lands not sold, reserved or otherwise disposed of at the time the route of the road was definitely fixed, it is settled in this court that the title to any particular lands would not pass until the line was so located, because until that time it could not be definitely ascertained what lands had been otherwise disposed of. Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360; Kansas Pacific Railway v. Dunmeyer, 113 U. S. 629; Sioux City Land Co. v. Griffey, ante, 32. As to lands |