Prior to 1895, individual state/territory surveyors general offices were responsible for issuing instructions regarding mineral surveys in their districts. In 1895 the GLO Commissioner's office decided to standardize the instructions and issued the first Federal manual. The manual was reissued in 1897 when a new Commissioner wanted the manual to have his name on it; everything else was the same. In 1909 the last set of instructions was issued as a separate manual. After 1909, the instructions for mineral surveys were included as a separate chapter in the 1930, 1947, 1973 and 2009 Manuals.
In 2010, I had the opportunity to scan two manuals of instructions for the mineral lands that are in the BLM Colorado State Office's library. The manuals are the 1897 and 1909 editions. Below are links to anonymously download both of the manuals. I normally wouldn't post anything about these manuals as they can be readily downloaded from Google Books and other online sources.
The reason I am hosting these two manuals is that the 1897 manual was the property of Milton E. Blake, a mineral clerk in the Colorado Surveyor's General office. The manual is filled with his annotations regarding state and federal laws, regulations, land decisions, mineral surveys of note and other information pertinent to his review of the returns submitted by mineral surveyors.
The 1909 manual was the property of the Chief Mineral Clerk of the Montana SG's office (No, I don't know how it ended up in Colorado). It doesn't have the same level of information as the other manual, but it does include information on several Montana mineral surveys that Montana surveyors may have an interest.
As I stated above, the links allow anonymous downloads; you don't have to register before downloading. I placed the PDF files into Zip files to avoid the preview file feature which takes a lot of time to load. The files are 40 MB and 50 MB in size.
Wow Gene - this looks like a gold mine (No pun intended)!
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing. I will probably never survey out west, but I downloaded the manuals and added them to my digital library.
Already downloaded and forwarded to Several MT surveyors who would like it
Thanks Gene...
Thank you, sir. Very glad to add these to my collection.
Cheers,
Henry
Thanks Gene. Very interesting stuff to have handy!
Thanks Gene!
South Dakota Field Notes
Jerry,
I talked with someone at the MT BLM about South Dakota records. They indicated that there should be microfiche copies of the field notes in the Billings Public Room. I was told that you might have to remind them that the notes are there. This should be a cheaper alternative to getting Xerox copies from the South Dakota State Archives.
Chuck
It has been a while. Hope all is well and that you have some work up high this summer!
Montana 1890 Manual to US Dep. Mineral Surveyors
Below is a link to the 1890 "Manual of Instructions to U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyors for the District of Montana". I found the manual at the Lewis and Clark Library in Helena and through inter-library loan made a complete scan in color. IIRC the Montana School of Mines Library also has as copy.
1890 Montana Mineral Survey Instructions
In the transmittal letter at the front of the manual, MT Surveyor General Geo. Eaton states that because some much has changed in the six years since the last manual was issued that he felt compelled to issue a new manual. Several of these circulars and instructions are included in the Appendix. If anyone knows where a copy of the 1884 manual is, please give me a shout.
The letter also mentions that the manual has been adapted, "from the practice of the older districts, chiefly Colorado and California, both as improved methods, and to produce uniformity in the proceedure (sic) so far as is possible or expedient, between the different surveying districts, as has been recommended by the Hon. Commissioner of the General Land Office."
One practice by the "older district" of California that was implemented in the 1890 Montana manual was the requirement to stake the points of intersection with prior official surveys. This practice was first proposed in the 1887 California manual and later in the 1888 Idaho manual (it was removed in the 1891 Idaho manual). I am curious if any Montana (Idaho and California, too, also) surveyors have documented this practice. The intersection stones were to be marked "P.I." followed by the mineral survey number. I have run across this once in my Colorado survey retracements, although it was never required in any of the 7 manuals for Colorado.
For those interested in more information regarding the sample mineral survey included in the 1890 Montana manual, I have included the links to the plat and patent available at GLO Records. The "real" plat does not include a mill site. Apparently, a mill site was manufactured for the sample field notes.
Montana Mineral Survey Plat for Sur. No. 1148
Patent for Montana Mineral Survey No. 1148