43 U.S.C. § 752 — Boundaries and contents of public lands; how ascertained
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This section sets how boundaries and areas of public-land sections, half-sections, and quarter-sections are determined. It gives rules for marked corners, surveyed lines, fractional townships, and recorded areas.
The boundaries and areas of public-land sections, half-sections, and quarter-sections must be determined as follows. First, every corner marked in a survey returned by the Secretary of the Interior or a designated agency is the proper corner of the section or subdivision it was intended to mark. Unmarked half- and quarter-section corners must be placed as nearly as possible equally far from two corners on the same line. Second, boundary lines actually run and marked in such a returned survey are the proper boundaries of the intended sections or subdivisions, and the recorded length is their true length. A boundary not actually run and marked must be determined by running a straight line from an established corner to the opposite corresponding corner. In a fractional township where no opposite corresponding corner has been or can be fixed, the line must run from the established corner due north, south, east, or west, as appropriate, to the watercourse, Indian boundary line, or other outside boundary. Third, a section or subdivision whose area was recorded by the Secretary or designated agency is treated as containing exactly that recorded amount. An unrecorded half-section is treated as one-half, and an unrecorded quarter-section as one-fourth, of the recorded area of the section of which it is part.
The boundaries and contents of the several sections, half-sections, and quarter-sections of the public lands shall be ascertained in conformity with the following principles:
First. All the corners marked in the surveys, returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be established as the proper corners of sections, or subdivisions of sections, which they were intended to designate; and the corners of half- and quarter-sections, not marked on the surveys, shall be placed as nearly as possible equidistant from two corners which stand on the same line.
Second. The boundary lines, actually run and marked in the surveys returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be established as the proper boundary lines of the sections, or subdivisions, for which they were intended, and the length of such lines as returned, shall be held and considered as the true length thereof. And the boundary lines which have not been actually run and marked shall be ascertained, by running straight lines from the established corners to the opposite corresponding corners; but in those portions of the fractional townships where no such opposite corresponding corners have been or can be fixed, the boundary lines shall be ascertained by running from the established corners due north and south or east and west lines, as the case may be, to the watercourse, Indian boundary line, or other external boundary of such fractional township.
Third. Each section or subdivision of section, the contents whereof have been returned by the Secretary of the Interior or such agency as he may designate, shall be held and considered as containing the exact quantity expressed in such return; and the half sections and quarter sections, the contents whereof shall not have been thus returned, shall be held and considered as containing the one-half or the one-fourth part, respectively, of the returned contents of the section of which they may make part.
Source credit: (R.S. § 2396; Mar. 3, 1925, ch. 462, 43 Stat. 1144; 1946 Reorg. Plan No. 3, § 403, eff. July 16, 1946, 11 F.R. 7876, 60 Stat. 1100.)
- 1925Enacted · Act of Mar. 3, 1925, ch. 462 · 43 Stat. 1144
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