130 RURAL MICHIGAN 



proved by the United States survey, although the 

 tendency is believed to be steadily in this direction.^ 



The records of the General Land Office at Wash- 

 ington indicate that the survey of lands in Michigan 

 began in 1826. The meridian line was located at 

 longitude 84 degrees, 22 minutes, 24 seconds; and the 

 base line at 42 degrees, 2G minutes, 30 seconds. Their 

 point of intersection on the boundary between Jack- 

 son and Ingham counties became the starting-point 

 for running the lines of the "Congressional'" town- 

 ships into which much of the State has been divided, 

 and which in many, but not all cases, constitute the 

 unit of local government in the rural sections. Next 

 came the location of the section lines, along wliich 

 today in many instances rural highways have been 

 established, sometimes along the "quarter-line" in- 

 stead, thus giving to the countryside of Michigan a 

 checker-board arrangement, in some respects more 

 convenient than esthetically pleasing. On these 

 lines the surveyors set corner-posts and quarter-posts, 

 notched and inscribed to indicate their exact position, 

 while "meandering stakes" marked the course of 

 streams and the shore-line of lakes. Through de- 

 fective surveying, corners of sections and townships 

 did not always "close*' accurately, and the traveler 

 by road still encounters strange "jogs" or deflections 

 from the direct course, caused by the necessity of 

 correcting a defective corner, or of setting a boundary 

 on a new meridian if the nominal requirement of a 

 township six miles square was to be even approxi- 



iQ. B. Fuller, Auditor-General: Letter of Sept. 20, 1920. 



