guides begin on the second standard parallel south, and close on the first standard parallel south, again starting from the third standard parallel south, and closing on the second standard parallel south, and so on. The closing corners on the principal base and standard parallel are established at points of convergency of the meridians, which occasion a double set of corners on the principal base and correction, or standard parallels, styled "standard corners" and "closing corners." This process requires off-setting of the guide meridians to the extent of the convergency of the meridians on each of the standard parallels and bases.

The principal base, principal meridian, standard parallels, and guide meridians, constitute a frame-work of the rectangular system of public surveys. Within these limits any errors are avoided which otherwise would result from adhering to the surveys made as the law directs, to the true meridian, in consequence of the convergency of meridians and of measurement over uneven surfaces.

The surveys of the standard lines are made with instruments operating independently of the magnetic needle, the magnetic being noted solely to show the true variation. These lines divide the sphere of field operations into parallelograms of 48 by 24 miles north of the principal base, and 48 by 30 miles south, the convergency of the meridians in the former instance being greater than in the latter.

The parallelograms formed by meridians and parallels are in their turn subdivided into townships, and the latter ultimately into sections with an ordinary but perfectly adjusted compass. These parallelograms also serve to connect distant surveys from those progressing regularly from the initial point, if first required, for the convenience of remote settlements or other considerations.

The township lines start from the standard corners, pre-established on the principal base and standard or correction parallels, and are surveyed to the extent required within each parallelogram. On those lines quarter section, section, and township corners are fixed to govern the subdivisional work of the townships into 36 sections.

The sections of one mile square are the smallest tracts, the outboundaries of which the law requires to be actually surveyed. Their minor subdivisions, represented in dotted lines on the accompanying diagram, are not surveyed and marked in the field. They are defined by law, and the surveyors general, in protracting township plats from the field-notes of sections, merely designate them in red ink, the lines being imaginary, connecting opposite quarter section corners in each section from south to north, and from east to west, thereby dividing sections into four quarter sections of 160 acres each, and these, in their turn, into quarter-quarter sections of 40 acre tracts, by imaginary lines, starting from the equidistant points between the section and quarter section corners to similar points on the opposite sides of the section.

Each section containing 640 acres, subdivided into legal subdivisions, affords forty different descriptions, susceptible of being disposed of to purchasers, from 640 acre tracts to 40 acre parcels.

This convenient mode of subdividing sections with a view to economy and to facilitate sales of small tracts, although not actually marked on the ground by metes and bounds, yet under laws of Congress are susceptible of demarkation by any surveyor in the different States and Territories, in accordance with the field-notes of the original survey made by United States officers.

The rectangular system has been in operation for upward of eighty years. Its advantages over the trigonometrical method consist in its

economy, simplicity in the process of transfer, and brevity of description in deeding the premises by patents, and in the convenience of reference of the most minute legal subdivision to the corners and lines of sections, townships of given principal base and meridians, affording unerring means for the restoration of lines and marks when destroyed by time or

accident.

Since the inauguration of the system it has undergone modification in regard to the establishment of standard lines and initial points, the system of parallels or correction lines, as also of guide meridians, having been instituted, contributing much toward the completeness of the system. There are at present permanently established twenty principal bases, and twenty-three principal meridians, controlling the public survey in the land States and Territories, with the exception of Alaska, Wyoming, and Indian country. The public surveys in some districts are governed by one principal base and principal meridian, as in Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, partly in Western Minnesota, and Eastern Dakota, where the 5th principal meridian and principal base have the initial point in Arkansas, and yet controlling all the surveys in those political divisions. In California there are three different initial points, necessitated by abrupt mountain ranges running through the State.

The latest established principal base and meridian are in Montana, which regulate the surveys in that Territory. It is reported by the surveyor general as being "on the summit of a limestone hill about 800 feet high, about 12 miles southwest of the junction of the three forks of the Missouri River," instead of Beaver Head Rock, as suggested to him in 1867, the latter having been found by actual examination less suitable. The lines of public surveys over level ground are measured with a fourpole chain, sixty-six feet in length, SO chains constituting one lineal mile, but with a two-pole chain where the features of the country are broken and hilly. The lines thus chained are marked through timber land by chops on line trees on each side, and in the absence of such trees those standing nearest the survey on both sides are blazed diagonally toward the line run. Trees standing at the precise spot where legal corners are required are made available. If no such trees are there, then the corners are perpetuated by posts or stones, with inscriptions, and the positions of the same are indicated by witness trees or mounds, the angular bearings and distances from the corner being ascertained and described in the field-notes. The lines intersecting navigable streams, the areas of which are excluded from sale, require the establishment of meander corner posts, the courses and distances on meandered navigable streams governing the calculations from which the true contents of fractional lots are computed and expressed on township plats. Township corner posts, or stones common to four townships, are set diagonally, properly marked with six notches on each of the four angles set to the cardinal points of the compass; and mile posts on township lines are marked with as many notches on them as they are miles distant from the township corners respectively; the four sides of the township and section posts, which are common to four townships or sections, are marked with the corresponding number of sections. See subjoined diagrams in the appendices.

The principal meridian, base, standard, and guides having been first measured and marked, and the corner boundaries thereon established, the process of surveying and marking the exterior lines of townships, north and south of the base, and east and west of the meridian, within those standard lines, is shown on diagrams herewith.

With papers accompanying this report will be found form of a surveying contract and bond into which a United States surveyor general enters

with a deputy surveyor, after being commissioned, for the survey of either standards, townships, or subdivisions. The contract specifies the localities where surveys are to be made, duration of the time within which the work is to be returned, the price of survey per lineal mile, including all contingent expenses to be borne by the deputy surveyor, who is required to execute the work in his own proper person, sub-contracting being illegal.

RE-ESTABLISHING THE LINES OF PUBLIC SURVEYS.

The original corners when they can be found must stand under the statute as the true corners they were intended to represent, even though not exactly where strict professional care might have placed them in the first instance. Missing corners must be re-established in the identical localities they originally occupied. When the spot cannot be determined by the existing landmarks in the field, resort must be had to the fieldnotes of the original survey. The law provides that the length of the lines, as stated in the original field-notes, shall be considered as the true lengths, and the distances between corners set down in those notes constitute proper data from which to determine the true locality of a missing corner; hence the rule that all such should be restored at distances proportionate to the original measurements between existing original landmarks.

LAWS AND RULES GOVERNING THE SUBDIVISION OF SECTIONS OF

PUBLIC LANDS.

Information is frequently called for in reference to the rules prevailing in the surveys and subdivisions. The acts of Congress approved May 10, 1800, section 3, vide United States Statutes, vol. 2, page 73, and February 11, 1805, same vol., pages 313 and 314, regulate the mode of proceeding.

Although the statute of 1805 does not require actual running and marking the interior lines of a section by the government surveyors, it prescribes certain principles upon which the division lines may be ascertained and the lands sold by legal subdivisions, as laid down on township plats by surveyors general.

The subdivision of a quarter section provided for by section 1, act of Congress approved April 24, 1820, Statutes, vol. 3, page 566, is as follows: And in every case of the division of a quarter section, the line for the division thereof shall run north and south, and corners and contents of half-quarter sections which may thereafter be sold shall be ascertained in the manner and on the principles directed and prescribed by the second section of an act entitled "An act concerning the mode of surveying the public lands of the United States," passed on the eleventh day of February, eighteen hundred and five; and fractional sections containing one hundred and sixty acres or upwards shall in like manner, as nearly as practicable be subdivided into half-quarter sections, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury.

In pursuance of said foregoing act of Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury, then having jurisdiction, directed the subdivision of fractional sections into half-quarters by north and south or east and west lines, so as to preserve the most compact and convenient forms, together with the quantity contained in each subdivision.

The act of Congress approved April 5, 1832, Statutes, vol. 4, page 503, provides for the subdivision of a half-quarter thus:

And in every case of a division of a half-quarter section, the line for the division thereof shall run east and west, and the corners and contents of quarter-quarter sections which may thereafter be sold shall be ascertained as nearly as may be in the manner and on the principles directed and prescribed by the second section of an act entitled "An act concerning the mode of surveying the public lands of the United States," passed on the

eleventh day of February, eighteen hundred and five, and fractional sections containing fewer or more than one hundred and sixty acres shall in like manner, as nearly as may be practicable, be subdivided into quarter-quarter sections, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury.

In accordance with these legal provisions, the Secretary of the Treasury in 1834 directed the subdivision of sections into quarter-quarter sections as follows:

In all cases where the quantity of the fractional section, or the portion thereof remaining unsold, and liable to be subdivided under the act of the 5th April, 1832, admits of the sale of one or more quarter sections, you will subdivide such quarter sections into quarterquarter sections, and they will be described by the registers as quarter-quarter sections. Fractional sections containing less than 160 acres, after the subdivision into as many quarter-quarter sections as it is susceptible of, may be subdivided into lots, each containing the quantity of a quarter-quarter, by so laying down the line of subdivision that they shall be 20 chains wide; the distances are to be marked on the plat of subdivision, which must show the areas of the quarter-quarters and residuary fractions.

The aforesaid legal provisions govern the methods employed for the survey and calculation of areas of the fractional sections on the north and west of townships, such surveys representing the proper boundaries, contents, and subdivisions of the several sections, half sections, quarter sections, half-quarter sections, quarter-quarter sections, and fractions designated by special numbers.

It is now proposed to show the progress made in the extension of the lines of surveys, and in the disposal of the lands in the different regions of the national territory extending from the Floridian peninsula on the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to begin with the frontier States, bounded by Lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan, and first with the State of

MICHIGAN.

Michigan originally formed part of the region ceded to the United States by the State of Virginia, described as the territory northwest of the Ohio. The cession embraced the country now within the limits of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern part of Minnesota, having an aggregate area of 213,000 square miles. Michigan was first erected into a Territory by the act of January 11, 1805, and admitted as a State by act of January 26, 1837; Statutes, vol. 5, page 144. It is separated on the north and east from the dominion of Canada by Lake Superior, river St. Marie, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and Detroit River, having Ohio and Indiana on the south, and Lake Michigan and the State of Wisconsin on the west, embracing an area of 56,451 square miles, or 36,128,640 acres. The State is divided into two peninsulas, northern and southern, separated by the straits of Mackinaw, uniting Lakes Huron and Michigan. The northern peninsula in its greatest length is 316 miles, and from 30 to 120 wide, embracing twofifths of the whole area of the State, or 22,580 square miles. This peninsula presents a striking contrast in soil and surface to the southern, the latter being generally level or undulating, and very fertile, the former rugged and in certain portions even mountainous, the streams abounding in rapids and waterfalls, rendering the scenery very picturesque and beautiful. The climate of the northern peninsula is rigorous, and the soil sterile, fully compensated, however, by the extensive deposits of copper and iron. The eastern portion is less rugged than the western, where mountains attain an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet.

The central portion of this peninsula is rolling table land, for the most part well timbered with white pine, spruce, hemlock, birch, oak, aspen,

maple, ash, and elm, abounding in rich deposits of copper, extending from Lake Superior at Keweenaw Point to the western borders of Michi gan. Minerals also exist on Isle Royale, (in the northwestern part of Lake Superior, 45 miles north of Keweenaw Point,) which embraces an area of 230 square miles. These localities, together with Ontonagon and Portage Lake, constitute the principal mining regions in Michigan, the shipments of copper alone from Portage Lake, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon, from 1845 to 1865 inclusive, amounting to 76,107 tons. In 1865 these mines produced 9,971 tons; in 1866, about 7,500; while the yield of 1867 will probably not exceed 5,060 tons. The diminution in the product is not attributable to any failure of the mines, but to the scarcity and consequent high price of labor, which, in one instance, led to a suspension of operations. The vast deposits of iron ore in this State are almost exclusively in Marquette County, the Jackson, Cleveland, and Lake Superior mines being the principal ones. The yield of the iron mines from 1855 to 1862 was 414,136 tons; in 1863 it was 273,000 tons of ore; in 1866, 296,872 tons of ore, and 18,437 tons of pig iron; while in 1867 it amounted to 469,320 tons of ore, valued at $2,345,600, and 30,911 tons pig iron, valued at $1,130,120, being an increase of 172,448 tons of ore and 12,474 tons of pig iron over the product of 1866.

Lake Superior, washing the northern shores of this peninsula, and the largest expanse of fresh water on the globe, embraces an area of 23,000 square miles, with a coast line of 1,500 miles. The southern peuinsula includes three-fifths of the entire area of Michigan, being 275 miles from north to south, and 175 on the southern boundary from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan, its greatest width being 200 miles between Lakes Huron and Michigan. This peninsula, so interesting in its agricultural and economical aspects, has the greater portion of the population and improvements. It is generally level, rising gradually from the lakes on the east and west to a vast undulating plain in the interior, covered for the most part with various kinds of oak, black and white walnut, sugar maple, elm, linden, hickory, ash, bass-wood, locust, dogwood, poplar, beech, aspen, chestnut, cedar, tamarack, and paw-paw, while pine is found in great abundance in nearly all parts of the northern half of the peninsula. A small portion of the area is prairie; a considerable portion, however, is termed "oak openings," which are beautiful and fertile natural lawns, dotted over with scattering trees and free from undergrowth.

The

The divide between the waters flowing east and west is 300 feet above the level of the lakes, and 1,000 above the level of the sea. climate is varied and less rigorous than in the vicinity of the lakes. The great fertility of the soil is everywhere attested by a luxuriant flora and by crops of cereals, fruits, and vegetables. The wheat yield of Michigan in 1866 was 14,740,639 bushels, being an average of 13.8 bushels per acre, valued at $37,588,630, while the crops for 1867 and 1868 are reported at a larger average than in 1866. The culture of Indian corn in the southern part of the State is entirely successful. The crop for 1866 was 16,118,680 bushels, being an average yield of 32 bushels to an acre, and valued at $13,217,318. The hay crop of 1863 was valued at $15,000,000, and that of 1866 was 1,218,959 tons, valued at $16,760,686. The potato crop of 1866 amounted to 5,037,298 bushels, an average acre yield of 110 bushels, valued at $2,820,877. Rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and tobacco are also cultivated extensively.

Southern Michigan promises to become one of the greatest apple-growing regions of the Union. Peaches are raised successfully on the shores of Lake Michigan, while pears, plums, cherries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and quinces are grown throughout the State. Along