Th

'his issue of Our Public Lands is devoted largely to a special and very important kind of records the public land records.

As a topic for dinner conversation, most people would find the subject of records (those made of paper with writing on them!) rather boring. Except for records of notable historical significance (and, sometimes, only then because of an autograph on them), many people give very little thought to the general subject of records.

But we are a Nation that depends to a great extent on the records of the past and upon the records currently being created. This is true not only of government, but also of private businesses.

From birth certificate to death certificate, life insurance policies and automobile titles; licenses, drug prescriptions, letters and correspondence, bank checks, deeds, mortgages, and a thousand more. Records, reports, lists and documents. Statistics, serial numbers, and registers. Papers, files, binders, ledgers, and microfilm. Orders, invoices and bills of lading. All a part of the gigantic volume of paperwork created by 170 million Americans living, working, playing, and growing.

Few people are conscious of the importance which records assume in their daily lives. They are taken largely for granted.

Records that someone maintains and keeps upto-date, for example, make it possible for us to receive magazines and publications every month to which we subscribe. Someone's records determine the milkman's route, the laundry pick-up, and the policeman's beat. And those monthly bills that keep coming in-they're the result of someone's records of sales and deliveries and payments. What are the public land records? Why are they important? What are they used for?

The answers to these and many other questions about what is one of the fundamental tools of land conservation and management may be found in these pages.

As an important and every-day working tool of the Bureau of Land Management, the public land records have recently been the subject of much study and activity by many people, as the result of a monumental undertaking to revamp and modernize the entire records system.

The records themselves (and many of the methods by which those records were kept) are

more than a century and a half old. They are the legal basis of title to hundreds of millions of acres of privately owned lands.

Much of the early history of the exploration, settlement, and development of the western United States is recorded on their pages. Located on the pages of over six thousand bound volumes called tract books, containing over a million and a half pages, is the present status and past history of over a billion and a half acres of public and private lands. This includes over 75 percent of the total land area of the continental United States plus the Territory of Alaska.

Supporting the tract books, and documenting the work of the public land surveyors and land examiners are nearly nine thousand volumes of field notes and 200,000 plats of survey (maps).

And in addition to all this, there are over 11,500 volumes of land patents (title documents), representing the source of legal title on over six and a half million separate ownerships, embracing over a billion acres of land. (A billion acres is about one-half the total land area of the United States!)

The importance of the public land records, however, cannot be expressed in terms of their volume or size. Their real importance lies in the functions which they perform and the uses to which they are put. In these terms, the public land records are one of America's most necessary and valuable set of documents. They are the foundation of most real property ownership in the United States. Land ownerships change. Land uses and characteristics change. But the land itself does not. The public land records document and preserve the changes made on the land, providing illuminating footnotes to the history of the conservation and development of the public lands and their resources.

As a basic tool of public land management and conservation, these records are used by a wide variety of people-from a miner to a homesteader and from a government technician to a school teacher interested in land for a summer cottage. As the Nation grows in population and economic wealth, even greater demands will be made upon the public lands and the resources which they harbor. In this development, the public land records will continue to play an increasingly important role.

End

by CLARK L. GUMM, Cadastral Engineer, BLM

HE Bureau of Land Management is now engaged in a project to renew the active records of the greatest and most extensive land operation in history. These records are the legal basis of title and ownership to the fundamental resource of the United States-the land.

On the pages of these records will be found the origin and legal basis upon which rests the title to 62 million original individual land ownerships, constituting over one billion acres of the original public domain that are now in private ownership. This is the part of the public domain the National Government has sold, made available to veterans, or transferred to private ownership under the homestead and other public land laws during its 170 years of existence. It is unlikely that any collection of land records elsewhere in the world can equal the number, area, and present value of the real estate transactions based on these documents.

The Thirteen Colonies and the States of Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas were never part of the national public domain and their public lands and records have remained with them.

The public domain including Alaska has at its greatest extent aggregated 2.8 million square miles or approximately a third of the Continent. Of this vast area about 775 million acres remain in Federal ownership and on it active day-by-day records are maintained.

Over the years these records in many cases have become dog-eared and nearly illegible through decades of constant use. Also, the innumerable entries made throughout the years, which reflect the increasing interest in our public lands, have caused the records to become difficult and burdensome for the public to unravel. This situation is responsible for the renovation of the land records now underway.

The basic public land records are: the survey plat which represents the field survey; the tract books and serial registers in which the land status and transactions are recorded and the patent record which is the legal evidence of the transfer of title.

The rectangular cadastral survey of the public

lands of the United States was authorized b Ordinance of the Continental Congress on 20, 1785. This survey scheme as perfected in ceeding years was not an adaptation of an ea system used in the Colonies, Europe, or elsew From the earliest Colonial days, however, a had developed toward regularity in the layo cities and commons. This influence was shown in legislative enactments of some Col and the survey instructions for settlement of the large proprietors.

Unfortunately, these directives were ignor practice except in New England where the " tations" or townships tended with time to be more regular and uniform in size. Thes definite beginnings did, no doubt, influenc proponents of a systematic national survey tem when the means of settling the Northwe Territories, (the present day states north o Ohio River) came before the newly establ Congress. Probably more in the minds of delegates, however, was the bursting court do resulting from litigation over boundaries and disputes due to the unsatisfactory survey sys then in use.

The arguments for and against a national tematic plan of land surveys were hotly de and many communications bearing on this m were exchanged between leaders of the new try. Some of the Colonies believed that the ing system of "pitches," whereby a man sel his own land in any shape, would be adeo This was the random method and pattern of s ment which was universally practiced at time.

Originally, and for many years, it was con plated that the public lands would be sold a main source of revenue for the country and disposals would be in large parcels which w require little survey. George Washington cated he opposed detailed land surveys in th lief that people would be interested only in lands areas, when he wrote:

"The lands are of so versatile a nature that to th of time, they will not, by those who are acquainted with, be purchased either in township or by square n Time has shown the wisdom of those who

vocated the new survey system. Its superiority and success has been indirectly demonstrated by the fact that no other survey plan has been seriously suggested to supersede it.

When the Founding Fathers approved the Ordinance of May 20, 1785, they were venturing into untried and unknown territory. Until this time there had been no effort to establish a nationally coordinated cadastral survey in any country. The Ordinance also established another "first"a national policy of "survey before settlement." This was also a land practice that generally had died out with the Romans. In keeping with this policy the rectangular public land surveys were extended to the public domain before general settlement. Consequently this was the first step in the land settlement program.

The surveyor's field notes of his survey became the first written land records. From the field notes the survey plat is prepared and as the map or graphic summation of the field and office work becomes the foundation land record by which public lands are identified, described, and their areas given. No action or record on any piece of surveyed public land can be made without reference to the plat of survey.

Thus with every surge of our drive to the frontier, the settler generally found the Government surveyer had been there before him and had neatly blocked out the agricultural land into squares with the boundaries marked on the ground. The system of marking the corners and describing each tract was so simple that any one had little trouble locating or describing his particular land. The settler need not be troubled with the worry that his claim conflicted with another, as his boundaries were shown on the official plat and were common boundaries with his neighbors. He knew the exact amount of land he had purchased or settled since it was clearly shown by the survey plat.

If the early settler had received a grant it was equally important to him to know he was receiving the same amount as his fellows. Nor was he concerned that someone else might have a prior claim to his selection since the Government in authorizing him to settle had certified, by using other land records, that the land was open. When patent-the final Federal land record-was issued, he was assured that the title which was based on a mathematical and systematic survey plan, was incontestable as to location.

Under the rectangular survey system all section lines are run on the ground with surveying instruments and measuring tapes. Monuments, of the most durable material available, are established every half mile on the surveyed lines and are marked to show their location in the township. The primary unit of the public land survey system is the township. A township is a square, six miles on each side, or a total area of 36 square miles. Townships are laid out like the squares (Continued on page 12)

ECORDS are essential to the performance of the

of the Bureau of Land Management and to the fulfillment of its basic objective. They are necessary to protect the rights of individuals and the Government and to carry out the Government's accountability to the people. Federal land records are basic to the effective and efficient management of the Federally-owned lands and resources and to the whole real property structure of the public land states.

Adequate land records are a valuable tool of management. No program of land and resource management can progress satisfactorily without records which accurately document the status, ownership, and use of the public lands and their

resources.

There are many different kinds of laws that apply to the public lands. Some of those laws, such as the homestead laws, and the desert land laws provide a means for the transfer of public lands to private citizens for farms and homes. Other laws provide for the public sale of certain lands to individuals. Another law authorizes the disposal of small tracts.

There are also laws which provide for the disposal of mineral lands upon which mining claims have been located under the General Mining Laws. And another law authorizes States and local governments and nonprofit organizations to obtain lands for recreational and other public purposes. There are also laws authorizing the withdrawal of certain lands from all forms of public entry and appropriation-for defense purposes, for wildlife areas and for other management uses. Other laws permit the leasing of certain public lands for the development of oil, gas, and other mineral deposits. All of these laws are a part of the National land policy of the United States.

In the administration of the public domain the Bureau of Land Management is required to maintain a record of:

(1) All lands which are or have been a part of the public domain;

(2) All lands which have been patented or otherwise conveyed to private ownership;

(3) All rights and resources reserved to or

retained by the Government in conveyed lands; (4) All vacant public lands which are withdrawn or reserved for special uses;

(5) Each application for title to or use of public lands or resources including later actions taken on each application; and

(6) A record of lands restored to the public domain.

The present land records are of four different types. They are:

(1) Identification records-field notes and plats of survey, which identify and describe the public lands;

(2) Status records consisting of tract books and status plats which record the ownership and use status of public lands and resources;

(3) Control records such as patents, approved lists, acts of Congress, Proclamations, and orders, which provide the legal and administrative basis of rights in or title to public lands and resources; and

(4) Case records which document each separate action affecting the public lands or resources.

The use of the basic land records is not restricted to the officials and employees of Bureau of Land Management. The Federal land records are public records and are available for reference or examination by anyone who has a genuine interest in them.

The maintenance of the basic land records is the function and responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management. As the management of Federally owned lands and resources has increased in scope and intensity, the volume, variety and complexity of land records has increased, and has posed unusual problems in records maintenance and management.

One of the greatest sources of difficulty in the use of the status records, and a major deterrent to the expeditious determination of accurate and complete status, is the poor physical and documentary condition of the basic records.

Several detailed studies and investigations of the records system conducted during recent years have led to the development of a completely new and more effective records system. The new system employs the latest techniques of records man