1875.

1876.

1877.

1878.

1879.

1880.

The cost of survey of the lines of one township at the ordinary rates is $600, and at the augmented rates is $768, not including anything for meander lines, or for the standard and meridian lines run in reaching and controlling the township surveys. At the ordinary rates it costs for the field-work alone about 24 cents, and at the augmented rates about 3 cents, per acre. Add one cent to each of the above sums for the cost of disposing of the land, including expenses of the General Land Office, and it gives 3 cents as the cost of survey and sale of ordinary lands, and 4 cents as cost of survey and sale of timbered and mountainous lands, per acre.

COMPARATIVE PROGRESS OF SURVEYS DURING SIX YEARS LAST PAST.

The following table exhibits the comparative progress of the surveys and disposal of public lands during the period of six years beginning with the 1st day of July, 1874, and ending on the 30th June, 1880. It also shows the cost of the surveys in the field, including compensation to surveyors-general, their clerks and draughtsmen, and the incidental expenses of their offices, together with the number of the surveying and land districts.

Progress of surveys and disposal of public lands during a period of six years, §c.

The cost of the surveys of the public land and private land claims from the beginning of the system to June 30, 1880, including maintenance of offices of surveyorsgeneral, is estimated at $24,468,691, covering the survey of 752,557,195 acres, or at the rate of 3 cents per acre. The cost of disposition has been $22,094,611.07, or 2.9 cent. per acre, a total cost of 6.2 cents per acre for survey and sale.

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 field-notes 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 (2 Stats., p. 73), and February 11, 1805 (2 Stats., pp. 313, 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 subdi. visions, 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 (3 Stats., p. 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 Stated," 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 the 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 (4 Stats., p. 503), provides for the subdivision of a half-quarter-sections 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 subdi vided 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 quarter-quarter-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.

13 L 0-VOL III

CLOSING UP THE SURVEYS IN A SURVEYING DISTRICT.

A surveying district, in charge of a surveyor-general, is closed upon recommendation of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, by special act of Congress when the public domain therein is all surveyed, when the archives, plats, field-notes, &c., are transferred to the authorities of the State in which the lands lie, and are kept at the capital thereof, always subject, however, to the inspection of the United States.

The United States, under its system of surveys of public lands, has given to the land States in which it has closed its surveys and disposed of its lands, and will give to the States and Territories in which it is now closing surveys, a record of the same, which for clearness and fidelity is unparalleled in the history of land surveys and tenures. It is a complete transcript of the definition of metes and bounds of the surface of the States over which it is laid. It prevents litigation, makes holdings certain, and the original derivation of title will never be obscured by musty vellum and uncertain records.

CHAPTER VIII.

METHOD OF SALE, PRICE, AND DISPOSITION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, FROM 1784 TO 1880.

The following several chapters (VIII to XXI inclusive) give details as to practical results under the various laws or systems for the sale or disposition of the public domain, heretofore passed, and either obsolete by execution, limitation, or repeal, or still in full force and effect.

EARLY CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.

Soon after the cessions to the United States of western lands, or claims to them, by the States of New York and Virginia, Congress began to consider the subject of their disposition. The territory northwest of the river Ohio contained some grants made by French and English authority, but the State of Virginia had never opened a land office for the sale of lands in the region north of the river Ohio, the act of her legislature of 1779 forbidding location or pre-emption there. The resolutions for its government were passed in April, 1784, followed by the ordinance of 1787. October 30, 1779, Congress passed a resolution requesting States having claims to the western territory not to open land offices, and to forbear selling or issuing warrants for unappropriated lands or granting them during the continuance of the (Revolutionary) war. By their resolution of October 10, 1780, it was ordered that lands ceded to the United States should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and "shall be granted or settled at such time and under such regulations as shall hereafter be agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled, or any nine or more of them."

On April 29, 1784, Congress, by resolution, called the attention of the States still holding western lands to the fact of former resolutions of Congress asking for cessions; and, "in presenting another request for further cessions," stated (speaking of persons who had furnished supplies to carry on the war): "These several creditors have a right to expect that funds shall be provided on which they may rely for their indemnification; that Congress still considers vacant territory as an important resource, and that, therefore, the said States be earnestly pressed, by immediate and liberal cessions, to forward these necessary ends, and to promote the harmony of the Union." These western lands were looked upon by all the financiers of this period as an asset to be cashed at once for payment of current expenses of Government and extinguishment of the national debt. Congress at this time (1785) issued a proclamation forbidding settlement on the public domain. The act of 1804 was of like import, and the law of 1807 gave the President power of removal of settlers from the public lands pending sale. On the 20th of May, 1785, Congress passed an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands within the western territory. It not only included disposition, but it gave the first plan of survey of the lands prior to disposition. Under this ordinance the Board of Treasury (the Treasury Department prior to and under the