60 A MANUAL FOR NORTHERN WOODSMEN 



SECTION VIII 

 THE UNITED STATES PUBLIC LAND SURVEYS 



In the original States there is a great variety of system, 

 or lack of system, in the division of land for ownership. 

 Land which has ever been a part of the Public Domain of 

 the United States and that embraces in general the 

 territory north of the Ohio River and from the Mississippi 

 River west to the Pacific coast has been surveyed, with 

 small exceptions, under a common system, the so-called 

 " System of Rectangular Surveying." An account of this, 

 so far as it concerns the woodsman, follows. 



Chapter III of the Public Land Laws contains the fol- 

 lowing sections: 



SEC. 99. The public lands shall be divided by north and south 

 lines run according to the true meridian, and by others crossing 

 them at right angles, so as to form townships of six miles square, 

 unless where the line of an Indian reservation, or of tracts of land 

 heretofore surveyed or pa tented, or the course of navigable rivers, 

 may render this impracticable; and in that case this rule must 

 be departed from no further than such particular circumstances 

 require. 



Second. The corners of the townships must be marked with 

 progressive numbers from the beginning ; each distance of a mile 

 between such corners must be also distinctly marked with marks 

 different from those of the corners. 



Third. The township shall be subdivided into sections, con- 

 taining, as nearly as may be, six hundred and forty acres each, 

 by running through the same, each way, parallel lines at the end 

 of every two miles ; and by making a corner on each of such lines 

 at the end of every mile. The sections shall be numbered, re- 

 spectively, Ix'ginning with the number one in the northeast section, 

 and proceeding west and east alternately through the township 

 with progressive numbers till the thirty-six be completed. 



Fourth. The deputy surveyors, respectively, shall cause to 

 be marked on a tree near each corner established in the manner 

 described, and within the section, the number of such section 

 and o\r it the number of the township within which such section 

 may be. 



Fifth. \Vlu-rc the exterior lines of the townships which may 

 be sulnlivided into sections or half-sections exceed or do not ex- 

 tend fix miles, the excess or deficiency .shall l>" specially noted 



