Manual of surveying instructions 1973 pdf

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Various enabling acts expressly provide that the title to unappropriated lands within these States shall be retained by the United States. Moreover, lands in the territories not appropriated by competent authority before they were acquired are in the first instance the exclusive property of the United States, to be administered, or for disposal to such persons, at such time, in such modes, and by such titles as the Government may deem most advantageous to the public.

Congress alone has the power, derived from Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution, of disposing of the public domain and making all needful rules and regulations in respect thereto.

It is within the province of the Director of the Bureau of Land Management to determine what are public lands, what lands have been surveyed, what are to be surveyed, what have been disposed of, what remains to be disposed of, and what are reserved. By a well settled principle of law the United States, through the Department of the Interior, has the authority and duty to extend the surveys as may be necessary to include lands erroneously omitted from earlier surveys.

Beds of navigable bodies of water are not public domain and are not subject to survey and disposal by the United States. Sovereignty is in the individual states. Under the laws of the United States the navigable waters have always been and shall forever remain common highways. This includes all tidewater streams and other important permanent bodies of water whose natural and normal condition at the date of the admission of a State into the Union was such as to classify it as navigable water.

Tidelands which are covered by the normal daily overflow are not subject to survey as public land. In Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin, the swamp and overflowed lands, through public domain, pass to the States upon identification by public land survey, and approved selection, the title being subject to the disposal by the States.

The Act of March 2, 9 Stat. The Act of September 28, 9 Stat. These various grants were carried over into R. A notable exception to the swamp land laws is found in the Arkansas Compromise Act of April 29, 30 Stat. The provisions of the grants apply to elevations below the uplands where, without the construction of levees or drainage canals, the areas would be unfit for agriculture.

The grants apply to all swamp and overflowed lands unappropriated at the dates of the granting acts, whose character at that time would bring them within the provisions of the grant. Discussion of swamp and overflowed lands in connection with field examinations and surveys is found in chapter VII on Special Surveys. Based on these early laws, that part of the Northwest Territory which became the State of Ohio was the experimental area for the development of the rectangular system. Here the plans and methods were tested in a practical way.

Notable revisions of the rules were made as the surveys progressed westward until the general plan was complete. Adoption of the rectangular system marked an important transition from the surveying practice that generally prevailed in the Colonial States where lands were described by irregular metes and bounds, each parcel depending more or less on the description of its neighbors. The surveying system developed under the early laws was incorporated in the Revised Statutes and the United States Code:.

Duties of Director. The Secretary of the Interior, or such officer as he may designate, shall perform all executive duties appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands of the United States, or in any wise respecting such public lands, and, also, such as relate to private claims of land, and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the Government.

The Secretary of the Interior, or such officer as he may designate, is authorized to enforce and carry into execution, by appropriate regulations, every part of the provisions of this title not otherwise specially provided for. Rules of Survey. 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 surveyed or patented prior to May 18, , 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.

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. The township shall be subdivided into sections, containing, as nearly as may be, six hundred and forty acres each, by running parallel lines through the same from east to west and from south to north at the distance of one mile from each other, and marking corners at the distance of each half mile.

The sections shall be numbered, respectively beginning with the number one in the northeast section and proceeding west and east alternately through the township with progressive numbers, until the thirty-six be completed. 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; and the deputy surveyors shall carefully note, in their respective field books, the names of the corner trees marked and the numbers so made.

Where the exterior lines of the townships which may be subdivided into sections or half-sections exceed, or do no extend six miles, the excess or deficiency shall be specially noted, and added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections or half-sections in such township, according as the error may be in running the lines from east to west, or from north to south; the sections and half-sections bounded on the northern and western lines of such townships shall be sold as containing only the quantity expressed in the returns and plats respectively, and all others as containing the complete legal quantity.

All lines shall be plainly marked upon trees, and measured with chains, containing two perches of sixteen and one-half feet each, subdivided into twenty-five equal links; and the chain shall be adjusted to a standard to be kept for that purpose. Every surveyor shall note in his field book the true situations of all mines, salt licks, salt springs, and mill seats which come to his knowledge; all watercourses over which the line he runs may pass; and also the quality of the lands. These field books shall be returned to the Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate, who shall cause therefrom a description of the whole lands surveyed to be made out and transmitted to the officers who may superintend the sales.

He shall also cause a fair plat to be made of the townships and fractional parts of townships contained in the lands, describing the subdivisions thereof, and the marks of the corners. This plat shall be recorded in books to be kept for that purpose; and a copy thereof shall be kept open at the office of the Secretary of the Interior or of such agency as he may designate for public information, and other copies shall be sent to the places of the sale, and to the Bureau of Land Management.

The boundaries and contents of the several sections, half-sections, and quarter- sections of the public lands shall be ascertained in conformity with the following principles:. All the corners marked in the surveys, returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be established as the proper corners of sections, or subdivisions of sections, which they were intended to designate; and the corners of half- and quarter-sections, not marked on the surveys, shall be placed as nearly as possible equidistant from two corners which stand on the same line.

The boundary lines, actually run and marked in the surveys returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be established as the proper boundary lines of the sections, or subdivision, for which they were intended, and the length of such lines as returned, shall be held and considered as the true length thereof. And the boundary lines which have not been actually run and marked shall be ascertained, by running straight lines from the established corners to the opposite corresponding corners; but in those portions of the fractional townships where no such opposite corresponding corners have been or can be fixed, the boundary lines shall be ascertained by running from the established corners due north and south or east and west lines, as the case may be, to the watercourse, Indian boundary line, or other external boundary of such fractional township.

Each section or subdivision of section, the contents whereof have been returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be held and considered as containing the exact quantity expressed in such return; and the half-sections and quarter-sections, the contents whereof shall not have been thus returned, shall be held and considered as containing the one-half or the one-fourth part, respectively, of the returned contents of the section of which they may make part.

Rivers and Streams. All navigable rivers, within the territory occupied by the public lands, shall remain and be deemed public highways; and, in all cases where the opposite banks of any stream not navigable belong to different persons, the stream and the bed thereof shall become common to both. The public surveys shall extend over all mineral lands; and all subdividing of surveyed lands into lots less than one hundred and sixty acres may be done by county and local surveyors at the expense of claimants; but nothing in this section contained shall require the survey of waste or useless lands.

Survey of Private Land Claims. The Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate shall cause to be surveyed all private land claims after they have been confirmed by authority of Congress, so far as may be necessary to complete the survey of the public lands.

Penalty for Interrupting Surveys. Protection of Surveyor by Marshall of District. Whenever the President is satisfied that forcible opposition has been offered, or is likely to be offered, to any surveyor or deputy surveyor in the discharge of his duties in surveying the public lands, it may be lawful for the President to order the marshall of the State or district, by himself or deputy, to attend such surveyor or deputy surveyor with sufficient force to protect such officer in the execution of his duty, and to remove force should any be offered.

Additional legislation and orders pertinent to the survey of the public lands:. Purchase of Metal Monuments. The Act of May 27, 35 Stat. Penalty for the Destruction of Survey Monuments. Section 57 of the Criminal Code of provided a penalty for the unauthorized alteration or removal of any Government survey monument or marked trees. The wording was slightly modified June 25, , in ch.

Resurvey of Public Lands. The Act of March 3, 35 Stat. Selection of Surveyors. Further Authority for Resurveys. The Act of September 21, 40 Stat. Such resurveys will be undertaken only upon application of the owners of at least three-fourths of the privately owned land in the township, and upon deposit of the estimated costs of the resurvey.

Acceptance of Contributions for Surveys. The Act of July 14, 74 Stat. The National Environmental Policy Act of The Act effective January 1, 83 Stat. Agencies shall develop programs and measures to protect and enhance environmental quality.

Establishment of the Bureau of Land Management. Under that plan the General Land Office was abolished and its functions transferred to the Secretary. Order No. In the organization of the Bureau of Land Management, the Division of Cadastral Survey is located in the headquarters office.

This division has technical supervision, through state and service center directors, of surveying the public lands. The chief of the division acts as consultant to the Director in the formulation of policies, programs, standards, and procedures of cadastral surveys.

From the foregoing synopsis of congressional legislation it is evident:. That the boundaries and subdivision of the public lands as surveyed under approved instructions by the duly appointed surveyors, the physical evidence of which survey consists of monuments established upon the ground, and the record evidence of which consists of field notes and plats duly approved by the authorities constituted by law, are unchangeable after the passing of the title by the United States.

That the original township, section, quarter-section, and other monuments as physically evidenced must stand as the true corners of the subdivisions which they were intended to represent, and will be given controlling preference over the recorded directions and lengths of lines. That quarter-quarter-section corners not established in the process of the original survey shall be placed on the line connecting the section and quarter-section corners, and mid-way between them, except on the last half mile of section lines closing on the north and west boundaries of the township, or on other lines between fractional or irregular sections.

That the center lines of a regular section are to be straight, running from the quarter-section corner on one boundary of the section to the corresponding corner on the opposite section line.

That in a fractional section where no opposite corresponding quarter- section corner has been or can be established, the center line of such section must be run from the proper quarter-section corner as nearly in a cardinal direction to the meander line, reservation, or other boundary of such fractional section, as due parallelism with section lines will permit. That lost or obliterated corners of the approved surveys must be restored to their original locations whenever this is possible.

The basic provisions require that 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 six miles square;" that "the townships shall be subdivided into sections, containing as nearly as may be, six hundred and forty acres each;" and that "the excess or deficiency shall be specially noted, and added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections or half-sections in such townships, according as the error may be in running the lines from east to west, or from south to north.

In this rectangular plan the township boundaries are intended to be due north and south or due east and west. The boundaries running north and south are termed "range lines. Figure 2. The range lines are great circles of the earth that, if extended, would intersect at the north pole. This convergency becomes apparent in the measurement of the township lines.

The convergency is taken up at intervals by the running of standard parallels, on which the measurements are again made full. On the standard parallels first named "correction lines" there are offsets in the range lines and two sets of corners, standard corners for the lines to the north and closing corners for lines to the south. The usual interval between the standard parallels is 24 miles, but there were many exceptions in the older surveys.

In order to make the sections represent "square miles" as nearly as may be, the meridional lines are run from south to north and parallel to the east boundary of the township for a distance of five miles from the south boundary. These are run and monumented as true lines. The remainder of the section lines are all run by random and true between the established section corners.

This produces the rectangular sections, 25 of which contain acres each, within allowable limit.