section 36, or the extreme southeast angle of the township, so as to detect any change that may have taken place in the magnetic variation as it existed at the time of running the township lines, as well as to compare his chaining with that recorded in the field notes of the township he is subdividing.

In order, therefore, to determine the proper adjustment of his compass for subdividing the township, the surveyor begins at the southeast corner of the township, runs north on a blank line along the east boundary of section 36, at a variation, say, of 17° 51' east, 40.05 chains to a point five links west of the quarter-section corner previously established by former surveyor; he continues on, and at 80.09 he comes to a point twelve links west of the corner to sections 25 and 36. From this trial line he finds that, to retrace this line as surveyed by the previous surveyor, he must adjust his compass to a variation of 17° 46' east, decreasing the variation east by five minutes, being the result of the difference of latitude and departure in the distance of eighty chains.

With the variation, therefore, of 17° 46', the surveyor commences the subdivision of township 1 north, range 1 west of the principal meridian. Starting from the corner to sections 35 and 36 on the south boundary, he runs a line due north forty chains, marks the quarter-section corner to sections 35 and 36, and continues the line between sections 35 and 36 forty chains more, and at eighty chains from the starting point establishes corner to sections 25, 26, 35, and 36. Thence he runs a random line due east for corner to sections 25 and 36 on east boundary. If he intersects it at the corner, he marks the line back as the true line, establishing quarter-section corner thereon at a point equidistant; but if the random line intersects the eastern boundary of section 36, either north or south of the corner run for, he measures the distance to the corner from the point of the intersection, and calculates a course that will run a true line back between the section corners on the north boundary of section 36, with an increased or decreased variation, as the case may be. Having thus surveyed and marked section lines of section 36, the surveyor proceeds due north from the corner to sections 25, 26, 35, and 36, and at forty chains establishes quarter section; at eighty chains, section corner to sections 23, 24, 25, and 26; thence on random line he runs due east for the corner of sections 24 and 25 in east boundary, and returns on the true line in the manner he did when surveying the line between sections 25 and 36.

In this manner the survey of each successive section in the first tier is executed, until the surveyor arrives at the north boundary of the township, on a random line between sections 1 and 2, and in case it does not intersect the township line at the corner to sections 1 and 2 of the township he is subdividing, and sections 35 and 36 of the township lying north thereof, the surveyor notes the distance of the intersection east or west of the corner, from which he calculates a course that will run a true line south to the corner from which the random line started. Thence the surveyor returns five miles to the south boundary of the township he subdivides, and from the corner to sections 34 and 35 begins the survey of the second tier of sections in the like manner he pursued while surveying the first tier, closing his east and west section lines on the section corners of the first tier he has just established.

In the same manner the surveyor perambulates the township until he reaches the fifth tier of sections, and from each section corner established on this tier he completes the subdivision of the township by running random lines due west to the corners erected upon the range line, or the western boundary of the township, setting temporary quarter

section corners at precisely forty chains, and throwing the excess or deficiency of eighty chains of measurement on the extreme tier of quarter sections contiguous to the township boundary, and on returning to the interior section corners on a due east course, or otherwise, as the case may be, consequent upon the intersection of the random line with the west boundary of the township, the true lines are established with permanent quarter-section corners at forty chains from the last interior section corners set in surveying the fifth tier of sections.

The foregoing method of subdividing a township into thirty-six sections illustrates the mode and order of survey under every variety of circumstances, as shown by the topography on diagram B, herewith, the numbering of which begins at the northeast angle of the township, and proceeding west to number 6 continues east to number 12, thence west to number 18, and so on alternately to number 36 in the southeast angle of the township.

In subdividing each section, or six hundred and forty acres, into quarter sections, or one hundred and sixty acres each, as shown on the diagram B in dotted lines, the actual survey and marking of the lines are not executed by government surveyors in the field, but their boundaries are ascertained and marked, after the lands are sold, by county surveyors, at the expense of the owners of the lands. The manner of the subdivision consists of measuring straight lines from quarter-section corners of a particular section to the opposite corresponding corners, and the point of the intersection is the interior corner common to four quarter sections.

The quarter sections are, by law, subdivisible into quarter-quarter sections, or forty acres each, not actually surveyed by the government surveyor, but susceptible of survey, and of being marked in the field by county surveyors, at the cost of purchasers from the government, by straight lines running from points equidistant between quarter-section and section corners to the opposite corresponding points on section lines, from south to north and east to west.

Where uniformity in the variation of the magnetic needle is not found in the field, the public surveys are made with instruments operating independently of such variation; the solar compass, transit, or other instrument of equal utility is employed; but where the needle can be relied on in subdividing townships into sections, the ordinary compass of good construction is used for the purpose.

In measuring lines, a four-pole chain is used, consisting of one hundred links, being in length seven inches and ninety-two hundredths of an inch. To maintain the accuracy of the chain, surveyors compare its length from day to day with a standard chain kept for that purpose.

The length of lines is ascertained by horizontal measurements on an air-line, as near as possible, guided by compass-man in the direction of a flag put up in advance on the line to be measured. Impassable obstacles, such as rivers, marshes, abrupt and precipitous mountains and lakes, are obviated by resorting to right-angle offsets; or, if such be inconvenient, to a traverse or trigonometrical operation. The points of intersection of such natural impediments to chaining the lines are marked with posts, and the course and distance therefrom are given in the fieldnotes to two trees on the opposite sides of the line. These are called witness-trees, and are marked on the sides facing the posts commemorating the intersection points of the interrupted lines. The navigable lakes and water-courses declared by law public highways are meandered, so as to exclude their surfaces from the sale of public lands.

The meandered lines are perpetuated by meander posts at points of

the intersection of the township and section lines with such watercourses; the posts and witness-trees descriptive of township, range, and fractional section are properly marked.

Banks of navigable water-courses and lakes are meandered by taking the courses and distances of their sinuosities, which constitute proper data for computing the areas of fractional subdivisions of sections bordering such navigable water courses; and as these irregular tracts cannot be described by legal relative positions in a section, they are designated on township plats by a series of numbers, and are described as lot No. 1, 2, 3, and so on, of a particular section in a given township and range.

The monuments employed for commemorating corner boundaries on standard, township, and section lines are illustrated on the accompanying diagram "C." They are adapted to the survey of every variety of country, be it timbered, prairie where timber is not near, or mountainous and devoid of timber. The public surveys are conducted under the direction of the principal clerk of surveys, controlled by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and under the immediate superintendence of fifteen surveyors general in their respective surveying districts into which the public lands are divided.

The surveyors general, whose offices are conveniently located in their districts and well appointed with personal and other facilities for the business, enter into contracts with professional surveyors, whom they commission as their deputies, and who are thoroughly acquainted with the system and the official requirements in regard to field operations. Surveying contracts-blank forms herewith-describe the particular fieldwork to be executed, time within which it is to be completed, consideration stipulated at so much per lineal mile of surveying, including all expenses of the surveyor, his party and instruments, together with the proper returns of survey to the office of the surveyor general, to be accompanied by an affidavit of the surveyor to the effect that the work was performed by him, in his own proper person, in accordance with his contract and the manual of surveying instructions, and in strict conformity to the laws governing the survey.

The party of the deputy surveyor generally consists of two chainmen, flagman, axeman, and two moundmen, whose duties are to assist him in running, measuring, and marking the lines, and constructing and setting corner boundaries. They are sworn to perform their respective duties with fidelity before they enter on the same, and on completing the work they make affidavits to the effect that the deputy surveyor was assisted by them in the survey which they describe, and that it has been executed in all respects well and faithfully.

To guard the government from any loss that might be occasioned by erroneous or fraudulent surveys on the part of the surveyor, he is required to give bond, with approved securities, in double the amount of his contract; and when his unfaithfulness is detected the delinquent deputy and his bondsmen are punishable by law, and the surveyor debarred from future employment in like capacity.

Upon the return of surveys to the surveyor general, consisting of original field-notes and a topographical sketch of the country surveyed, the work is examined, and if, on applying the usual tests, it is found to be correctly executed, the surveyor general approves the field-notes; whereupon the draughtsman protracts the same on township plats in triplicate, and, after approving the plats, the surveyor general files the original in his office, to be ultimately delivered to State authorities; the auplicate is sent to the local land office to enable the register and

receiver of public lands to dispose of the lands embraced in the several townships, and the triplicate he transmits to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for the information of the government.

LAWS OF PROPERTY-PRE-EMPTION AND HOMESTEAD TITLES.

The ownership of the soil in severalty is essential to civilization. A low stage of society, it is true, a mere nomadic tribal organization, may subsist upon the basis of a community of landed property, or of a usufructuary occupancy of land, but such a constituent principle imposes inflexible limitations upon all human progress, social or individual. Society, thus hopelessly trammeled by the bands of its infancy, never rises above the low aims of animal existence. Its simplicity is not that of innocence, for barbarism has its revolting developments of moral depravity, but of ignorance and lethargy. Habits of settled industry and permanent residence are necessary to civilization; men must assume more intimate and varied relations to each other; society, in order to realize its beneficent aims, must develop a more elaborate and effective organism and call forth its latent forces. A permanent occupancy of the soil in severalty by intelligent labor, protected by efficient police arrangements, is essential to the attainment of these vital aims. No nation has entered upon a career of civilization without abandoning the community of landed estate and admitting the right of private property.

A nice question has been started among publicists as to the origin of the right of property, especially of landed estate. Grotius, Puffendorf, and Rutherforth contend that it arises from the express or implied consent of all concerned to the appropriation of unoccupied goods or land by a private individual. Barbeyrac, Locke, and Burlamaqui combat this hypothesis, and base the right of property upon prior occupancy as the exponent not of any agreement of men, but of a divine law, regulating human association, prior to and underlying the social compact. Men tacitly agree to let the sun shine, yet his continued illumination is by no means the result of that agreement; so their common consent to the appropriation of unoccupied goods is not in any sense the procuring cause or basis of property; it is but the spontaneous recognition of the will of the Creator-an outgrowth of that moral constitution of society which philosophers have denominated "the fitness of things."

Burlamaqui, who seems to have given the question rather a cursory glance, informally sides with Barbeyrac and Locke, by quietly taking positions hostile to Puffendorf's hypothesis. He teaches that the first occupant, in taking possession of what belongs to nobody, gives public notice of his intention of acquiring it; that this taking possession is but the acceptance of the destination which God had originally made of the good things of the earth for the preservation of man. Prior to this taking possession, the claim of all men to the goods or land contemplated was equal. The act of appropriation destroyed this equality of claim, constituting an effort of diligence and foresight which deserved a preference to the thing desired.

Both of the above hypotheses recognize the original donation of the earth and all its fullness to mankind as a whole, and both may be interpreted in strict conformity to this higher principle. Whether based upon the express or implied consent of community, or upon some underlying principle of which that consent is but the intuitive recognition, the ultimate property of the soil, and in fact of all goods, movable or immovable, resides in society. Private ownership is to be regarded as a sort of stewardship. "No man liveth unto himself alone." A solemn

obligation rests upon every one to use the good things of the earth for the general welfare. No legitimate individual interest can be segregated from the public weal. Society may have no judicial processes for the enforcement of this principle. Its whole police organization may be cumbrous and ineffective, while the ultimate end desired may be reached only in man's immortal estate; but the fundamental idea of human brotherhood pervades all true civilization.

The grant of the earth and its fullness to mankind as a whole-to society-makes government, the organ of society, to a certain extent the custodian of all kinds of property. Puffendorf distinguishes three kinds of property: 1st, eminent domain, residing in the commonwealth; 2d, direct property, residing in the landlord; and 3d, useful property, resid ing in the tenant. In all civilized states government claims the power of taxation or of appropriating such portion of private property as may be necessary to meet the exigencies of society. A refusal or failure to comply with such public demand is followed by confiscation or forfeiture of the right of property through failure of the proprietor to meet his correlative obligation of ministering to the welfare of society. Thus government, by its right of eminent domain, absorbs private ownership and reduces the lands or goods confiscated to that community which subsisted at the inauguration of civilization.

These fundamental principles of public order are brought to view in the organization and administration of the public domain of the United States. Civilized society, organized into an American nationality, takes possession of an immense continental area occupied only in community by hordes of savages claiming a usufructuary title to certain ill-defined areas under tribal organization. Grave considerations might be urged in favor of entirely ignoring these usufructuary claims. The absorption of immense tracts of country as hunting grounds, to supply the wasteful processes of savage life, might be urged with resistless force upon principles of natural justice which condemn all monopolies. In fact, it is but the claim of a savage aristocracy to the same exclusive privilege which the civilized aristocracies of Europe have pressed to such odious extremes in their overgrown parks and forests. But waiving all such adverse considerations, the general government has admitted these usufructuary Indian titles, and extinguished them, by treaty purchase, to successive areas, as the westward expansion of civilization has rendered necessary. We have nothing here to do with the non-realization of the beneficent designs of Congress for the welfare of the aborigines, nor with injuries often resulting, which no administrative sagacity could prevent. We find the United States government standing to the immense bodies of our unoccupied western domain in the relation of the trustee of society, holding not only the right of eminent domain, but also of individual ownership.

But it is contrary to the interests of civilization that this relation should continue longer than is absolutely necessary. Hence it has ever been the anxious desire of the government to transmute its title to the soil into private ownership by the most speedy processes that could be devised. The question of the disposal of the public lands occupied the anxious attention of our revolutionary statesinen, the old Continental Congress spending an entire year in framing the "ordinance" in that respect. This ordinance was the nucleus of a series of enactments by which the legislature has endeavored to adapt the details of the publicland system to the wants of successive periods of our history. These statutes, with the executive and judicial rulings under them, constitute