the base line and standard parallels are established at the intersection of the meridional lines therewith, thus, owing to the convergency of meridians, occasioning a double set of corners on those lines which are designated as "standard corners" and "closing corners."

The parallelograms formed by the base line, principal meridian, standard parallels, and guide meridians, twenty-four by forty-eight miles in extent north of the base line and thirty by forty-eight miles south of the base line, constitute the frame work of the rectangular system of surveys, except in the state of California, as above mentioned.

§ 30. Parallelograms.-These parallelograms are each subdivided into townships six miles square, containing as near as may be 23,040 acres, and again each township is subdivided into thirty-six sections of one mile square, containing, as near as practicable, 640 acres each. The sections of one mile square are the smallest tracts, the out-boundaries of which the law requires to be actually surveyed.

The minor subdivisions are defined by law, and the surveyors general, in protracting township plats from the field-notes of sections, designate them in red ink, the lines being imaginary, connecting opposite quarter-section corners, thereby dividing the section into four quarter-sections of 160 acres, and these in their turn into quarter quarter-sections of 40 acres each, by imaginary lines starting from points equidistant from the section and quarter-section corners, and running to opposite corresponding points. These imaginary lines may at any time be actually surveyed by the county surveyor, at the expense of the settler.

A tier of townships running north and south is called a range, and each range is numbered as it is east or west of the principal meridian. Each township is also numbered as it is north or south of the base line.

Township, sectional, or mile corners are perpetuated by planting a post at the place of the corner, to be formed of the most durable wood of the forest at hand, said posts to be four inches square, two feet deep, and two feet above the ground. They are marked above the ground with appropriate marking irons, the marks indicating for what they stand, and the mark always faces toward the township indicated. The marks are required to be one eighth of an inch deep, and the surveyor is required to apply to them all a streak of red chalk.

Section or mile posts, being corners of sections where such are common to four sections, are to be set diagonally in the

earth (in the manner provided for township corner posts), and on each side of the squared surfaces is to be marked the appropriate number of the particular one of the four sections respectively which such side faces; also on one side thereof are to be marked the number of its township and range.

In every township subdivided into thirty-six sections, there are twenty-five interior section corners, each of which will be common to four sections.

A quarter-section or half-mile post has no other mark on it than "S," to indicate what it stands for.

Township corner posts common to four townships are notched with six notches on each of the four angles of the squared part set to the cardinal points.

All mile posts on township lines have as many notches on them on two opposite angles thereof, as they are miles distant from the township corners respectively.

Each of the posts at the corners of sections in the interior of a township must indicate, by a number of notches on each of its four corners directed to the cardinal points, the corresponding number of miles, that it stands from the outlines of the township. The four sides of the post will indicate the number of the section they respectively face.

Should a tree be found at the place of any corner, it will be marked and notched as aforesaid, and answer for the corner in lieu of a post; the kind of tree and its diameter being given in the field-notes. Rocks and mounds are sometimes marked as

corners.

The lines of public surveys over level ground are measured with a four-pole chain 66 feet in length; eighty chains constituting one lineal mile; but with a two-pole chain where the features of the country are broken and hilly.

§ 31. Duties of Surveyor General.—A surveyor general is appointed by the president for each of the following-named states and territories: Louisiana, Florida, Minnesota, Kansas, California, Nevada, Oregon, Nebraska and Iowa, Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona; Nebraska and Iowa embracing but one surveying district.

R. S. 2207.

The surveyor general, while in the discharge of the duties of his office, must reside in the district for which he is appointed.

R. S. 2414.

And the president is authorized, in any case where he thinks. the public interests require it, to transfer the duties of register

and receiver in any district to the surveyor general of the surveying district in which such land district is located.

R. S. 2228.

Each surveyor general must prepare or cause to be prepared a plat and field-notes of all mining surveys made by authority of law, which must show accurately the boundaries of such claims; and when warranted by the facts, he must give to the claimant his certificate that five hundred dollars' worth of labor has been expended or improvements made upon the claim by the claimant or his grantors, and that the plat is correct, with such further description by reference to natural objects or permanent monuments as shall identify the claim and furnish an accurate description to be incorporated in the patent.

R. S. 2325.

Section 2447, revised statutes, requires the surveyors general, when duly authorized by law, to cause all confirmed private land claims within their districts to be accurately surveyed.

A surveyor general has the power to engage a sufficient number of skillful surveyors as his deputies, to whom he is authorized to administer the necessary oaths upon their appointment, and may remove them for negligence or misconduct in office.

And he must cause to be surveyed, measured, and marked without delay all base and meridian lines through such points and perpetuated by such monuments, and such other correctional parallels and meridians as may be prescribed by law or by instructions from the general land office, in respect to the public lands within his surveying district to which the Indian title has been or may be hereafter extinguished.

It is made his duty to transmit to the register of the respective land offices within his district general and particular plats of all lands surveyed by him for each land district; and to forward copies of such plats to the commissioner of the general land office.

R. S. 2223.

§ 32. Deposit of Money for Survey.-When the settlers in any township, not mineral or reserved by the government, desire a survey made of the same under the authority of the surveyor general, and file an application therefor in writing, and deposit in proper United States depository, to the credit of the United States, a sum sufficient to pay for such survey, together with all expenses incident thereto, without cost or claim for indemnity on the United States, it is lawful for the surveyor general, under such instructions as may be given him by the commis

sioner of the general land office, and in accordance with law, to survey such township, and make return thereof to the general and proper local land office, provided the township so proposed to be surveved is within the range of the regular progress of the public surveys embraced by existing standard lines or bases for the township and subdivisional surveys.

R. S. 2401.

The deposit of money in a proper United States depository, under the provisions of the preceding section, will be deemed an appropriation of the sums so deposited, for the objects contemplated by that section, and the secretary of the treasury is authorized to cause the sums so deposited to be placed to the credit of the proper appropriations for the surveying service; but any excesses in such sums over and above the actual cost of the surveys, comprising all expenses incident thereto, for which they were severally deposited, shall be repaid to the depositors respectively.

R. S. 2402.

Where settlers make deposits in accordance with the provisions of section 2401, above mentioned, the amount so deposited shall go in part payment for their lands situated in the townships, the surveying of which is paid for out of such deposits; or the certificates issued for such deposits may be assigned by indorsement and be received in payment for any public lands of the United States entered by settlers under the pre-emption and homestead laws of the United States, and not otherwise.

R. S. 2403.

§ 33. Calls, Courses, and Distances.-Where nothing exists to control the call for course and distance the land must be bounded by the courses and distances of the patent according to the magnetic variation.

McIvers v. Walker, 9 Cranch, 173.

An error in description is not fatal in an entry if it does not mislead a subsequent locator. "About north" means north. Shipp v. Miller's Heirs, 2 Wheat. 316.

In the case of Boadley v. Taylor, 5 Cranch, 191, Chief Justice Marshall says that, according to a uniform course of decisions in the state of Kentucky, the rule was established that one call in an entry or survey which is either impossible or uncertain should be disregarded, and the entry supported if there be other calls which are sufficiently certain. The same principle is asserted in Holmes v. Trout, 7 Pet. 171.

CHAPTER IV.

PUBLIC SALES AND PRIVATE ENTRIES.

§ 34. The Different Modes of Obtaining Title to Public Lands-Public Sales; Private Entries.

§ 35. In the Louisiana Purchase.

§ 36. In California.

§ 37. Beds of Navigable Lakes.

§ 34. The Different Modes of Obtaining Title to Public Lands. There are not less than ten different modes of obtaining title to public lands:

1. Through direct grants by congress, which include railroad grants and grants to states.

2. By public sales.

3. By private entry.

4. By pre-emption.

5. By homestead entry.

6. Under the timber-culture act.

7. Under the town-site and county-seat act.

8. Under the act relative to bounty land warrants. 9. Under the laws relating to mineral lands.

10. Under the desert-land act.

11. Under acts and treaties in relation to private land claims. The last, though it is not, strictly speaking, a method of obtaining title to public lands, is still a mode by which a patent from the government may be obtained.

And first, of public sales and private entries. Congress, by the third section of the act of June 15, 1880 (section 42), reduced the price of land within railroad limits then subject to entry (meaning in this connection ordinary cash entry of offered lands), which were put in market at $2.50 prior to the 'first of January, 1861, to $1.25 per acre. Title to these lands may be acquired by purchase at public sale or by ordinary private entry, and in virtue of the pre-emption, homestead, timberculture, and other laws.

One and the same individual may take up lands under the pre-emption, homestead, and timber-culture laws, and if there is adjacent land not susceptible of cultivation without irrigation, under the desert-land act also, thus obtaining more than