LAND SURVEYS 



85 



ORIGINAL SURVEYS 



Metes and bounds. Metes-and-bounds surveys locate 

 lands by surveying and describing the boundary of each 

 tract independent of any other area. They were used in 

 the original thirteen colonies, in Tennessee and Kentucky 

 before 1785, and on lands acquired from France and Spain 

 previous to their cession to the United States. The objec- 

 tion to this system is that the lands are in irregular tracts, 

 not located with reference to any fixed monument, and from 

 the written description several tracts cannot be definitely 

 platted or located with relation to one another. Since 1785 

 the metes-and-bounds system (Fig. 98) has been used only 

 to a limited extent for original surveys. 



Rectangular system. The rectangular system is the 

 method that has been used by the United States govern- 

 ment in surveying all agricultural lands since 1785. This 

 system is frequently spoken of as the United States land 

 survey system or the Gen- 

 eral Land Office system of 

 public surveys. 



History . The rectan- 

 gular system was de- 

 vised by a committee of 

 Congress of which Thomas 

 Jefferson was chairman. 

 On May 20, 1785, Con- 

 gress adopted the recom- 

 mendation of this com- 

 mittee that lands be laid 

 out in townships 6 miles 

 square, containing 36 sec- 

 tions each a mile square. 

 The law of 1785 provided 



only for the surveying of the township lines, leaving 

 the section lines to be surveyed by private parties. The 

 only lands surveyed under this law were in southwestern 



Fig. 99. Method of numbering sections 

 from the year 1785 to 1796 



