GO 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-calJed 
“ 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 patented, 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, beginning 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 over it the number of the township within which such section 
may be. 
Fifth. Where the exterior lines of the townships which may 
be subdivided into sections or half-sections exceed or do not ex¬ 
tend six miles, the excess or deficiency shall be specially noted 
