17 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Surveyors in the News professional care that would be required or practiced by a resurvey. The Surveyors General of the several States and the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington from their increasing number of letters received from Local and County Surveyors, have been greatly taxed to answer all the problems submitted to them; so much so that the Department of the Interior has issued a pamphlet for the government of County and local Surveyors in the reestablishment of lost corners. It gives a synopsis of all the acts of Congress, relating to the public survey, then says: “From the foregoing legislation it is evident: 1. That the boundaries of the public lands established and returned by the duly appointed Government Surveyors when approved by the Surveyors General and accepted by the Government are unchangeable. 2. That original township section and quarter section corners established by the Government Surveyors, must stand as the true corners which they were intended to represent whether the comers be in place or not. The Commissioner then gives specific instructions, how to establish correction, township, section, quarter section and meander corners, but it is entirely silent in regard to donation claim boundaries and corners, but we suppose of course that the same general rule would apply to Claims Surveys as to section township lines. He has well said that “the variation of the needle, as noted, is not to be implicitly relied upon, since the observations for variation are in many instances crude and rough and at best afford but an approximation in such work.’’ The pamphlet is published merely as nil opinion and not law and says: “No definate rule can be laid down as to what shall be sufficient evidence in reestablishing boundary and corners and much must be left to the skill, fidelity, and good judgement of the Surveyor in the performance of his work; when this fails to give satisfaction, resource must be had to the courts. The Surveyor Generals receive many letters in relation to the settlement of disputed lines that are entirely foreign to the duties of their office, and they give an opinion or answer merely from courtesy, which often imposes quite a burden without any compensation. The services of an expert at finding lost corners and all the evidences relating thereto, seems to be the only way out of the difficulty, outside of the courts. The original evidences of the public land surveys in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Kansas have been turned over to the State authorities and some of the legislatures have passed laws requiring land owners to have their comers re-established, and then give rules for the work, or the lines as held shall govern; but until our legislature takes the matter in hand it will be well for land owners to keep the corners that they have.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTY1NDIzOQ==