Land Office, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than three thousand dollars, and be imprisoned not less than one nor more than three years.

4 Stat. 417; R S. 2412.

SEC. 121. 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 marshal 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.

4 Stat. 417; R. S. 2413.

SEC. 122. The President is authorized to appoint surveyors of public lands, who shall explore such vacant and unappropriated lands of the United States as produce the live-oak and red cedar timbers, and shall select such tracts or portions thereof, where the principal growth is of either of such timbers, as in the judgment of the Secretary of the Navy may be necessary to furnish for the Navy a sufficient supply of the same. Such surveyors shall report to the President the tracts by them selected, with the boundaries ascertained and accurately designated by actual survey or water-courses.

3 Stat. 347; R. S. 2459. U. S. v. Briggs, 9 How. 351.

SEC. 123. The director of the geological survey shall, under the Interior Department, have the direction of the geological survey and the classification of the public lands and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain.

20 Stat. 394.

218. Manner of Field Work and Changes that have been Made.-In accordance with these laws, instructions have been issued from time to time, by the

Commissioners of the General Land Office, directing the manner in which the field work should be performed.

In the earlier surveys under the act of 1796 (Sec. 2395 R. S. See p. 244, Sec. 99, Third,) the township was subdivided by parallel lines two miles apart. The mile posts were planted on these lines, but no half mile (or quartersection) corners set.

The act of 1800 provided that the townships west of the Muskingum River should be subdivided into half sections of 320 acres each, as near as may be, by parallel lines run through them from east to west and from north to south at distances of a mile apart. Half-mile posts were to be set on the east and west lines, but not on the lines running north and south.

The act of 1805 (Sec. 2396 R. S. P. 245, Sec. 100) covers in its provisions the two classes of surveys above noted, as well as the principles governing all subsequent surveys of the public lands.

Since that time, few changes have been made in the manner of carrying on the surveys.

The principal change has been in the manner of closing the subdivision lines on the exterior line of the township.

In some of the earlier surveys, three sets of corners were marked in the range lines. The first set was marked when the range line was run, and were not really corners of the subdivisions.

The other two sets were marked at the points where the subdivision lines of the townships, both east and west, intersected the range line-those lines not being required to close on the corners previously set on the range line.

Later the surveyors were required to close their subdivision lines upon the corners previously set on the east line of the township, but not on the north or west. Double corners were thus produced on all the exterior lines of the township.

Most of the surveys before 1846 were made under this system, which is thus laid down in the Instructions of 1815:

"Each side of a section must be made one mile in measure by the chain, and quarter-section corners are to be established at every half mile, except when in the closing of a section, if the measure of the closing side should vary from 80 chains or one mile, you are in that case to place the quarter-section corners equidistant, or at an average distance from the corners of the section; but in running out the sectional lines on the west or north side of the township, you will establish your quartersection posts or corners at the distance of half a mile from the last corner, and leave the remaining excess or defect on the west or north tier of quarter-sections, which balance or remainder you will carefully measure and put down in your field-notes in order to calculate the remaining or fractional quarter-section on the north and west side of the township; also in running to the western or northern boundary, unless your sectional lines fall in with the posts established there for the corners of sections in the adjacent townships, you must set post and mark bearing trees at the points of intersection of your lines with the town boundaries, and take the distance of your corners from the corners of the sections of the adjacent townships, and note that and the side on which it varies in chains or links, or both.

The sections must be made to close by running a random line from one corner to another, except on the north and west ranges of sections, and the true line between them is to be established by means of offsets."

The following, from the Instructions of 1815, will explain what has been to many surveyors an incomprehensible matter, viz., how the fractional areas laid down in the plats of the early United States surveys were arrived at:

85

X

K8

90

w

W

Sec.

7

40.00 6

Sec. 18

200 40.50 6

Sec. 19

h

K

k

and Western Tier of Fractional Quarter-Sections.-"You will commence, say at the northeast corner of the township, the length of the line from G to g being 40 chains, as established in running the exterior boundary of the township; you will proceed by adding the length of the line from 6 to F on the line from 0 to F, which is 42 chains, to the length G g, 40 chains, and divide it by two, which will give you the length of the line from the center of the section to f, on the town boundary, which, being added to the length of the line Gg and divided by two, will give you the length of one of the lines required for calculating the N. E. quarter of section No. 1; then the length of the line from & to f being 40 chains, and the south boundary of the section being 80 chains, the length of the line H to 1 is 40 chains-the length of the line from G to f-therefore there is no necessity for additions or divisions, as the line from 1 to ƒ is parallel to the line GH; then by multiplying those two sides together and cutting off as many decimals as there are in the sums multiplied, and dividing by 10, you have the contents of the N. E. quarter of section 1 in acres and decimal parts of an acre. You will

A

150 41.20 6

then proceed to calculate the N. W. quarter of the same section by taking the length of the line from the center of the section to f, as found in your former calculation, to which add 42 chains, the length of the line from 6 to F, and divide by two, which gives you the length of one of the lines required. Then as the line from 0 to F intersected the town boundary 3 chains east of the section corner, the length of the line from F to ƒ is only 37 chains, which, added to 40 chains (the length of the south line of the southwest quarter of section 1), and divided by two, will give you the length of the line from 6 to the center of the section, which being added to 37 and divided by two, will give you the length of the other line required, which you will calculate in the same manner as above.

As the length of the line from F to ƒ is only 37 chains, the length of the line from e to F must be 43 chains; the length of the line E to e is 38.50 chains; the length of the line from d to E, 41.50 chains, etc., the quarter-section corners not being placed at the average distance between the section corners, except when you strike the corners of the sections established in running the exterior lines of the township."

220. Instructions of 1881.—The leading points of interest to the surveyor in the Instructions of 1881, to United States deputy surveyors, are as follows:

1. The public lands of the United States are ordinarily surveyed into rectangular tracts, bounded by lines conforming to the cardinal points.

2. The public lands shall be laid off, in the first place, into bodies of land of 24 miles square, as near as may be. This shall be done by the extension of standard lines from the principal meridian every 24 miles, and by the extension, from the base and standard lines, of auxiliary meridians every 24 miles. Thereafter they shall be laid off into bodies of land of 6 miles square, as near as may be, called Townships, containing as near as may be 23,040