Ficticious Ties in Mineral Surveys

Gene Kooper · 2018-02-11T08:21:00Z

While my main interest in researching mineral surveys is to gather sufficient information to conduct a retracement/resurvey, I often find that my curiosity tends to wander into the historical setting and context of the original survey.?ÿ I end up being an amateur historian.?ÿ For example, I have conducted extensive research on an obscure General Land Office "policy".?ÿ This policy innocently began when the U.S. Surveyor General for Colorado, Mr. C.C. Goodale reacted to an admonition by the Hon. Commissioner in a Departmental letter dated June 17, 1899.The Commissioner's letter was in regard to a mineral survey above the town of Georgetown, CO and that the Surveyor General was without authority to give credence to alleged errors in prior official surveys.?ÿ Mr. Goodale's immediate reaction was to prepare a circular instruction and send it to all U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyors and applicants for mineral patents in Colorado.?ÿ Mr. Goodale included a brief statement about a Commissioner's letter followed by two paragraphs extracted from the Commissioner's letter.?ÿ The immediate impact of the circular is not known, nor when it spread to other states/territories.?ÿ I found evidence that by October 1899, U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyors in Colorado were fully complying with the instruction that patent description positions of prior official surveys were to be depicted on plats rather than their monumented positions.The earliest instance I found discussing this policy and the vexatious problems it created was in the December 20, 1900 issue (Vol. XLII, No. 25) of The Mining Reporter.?ÿThe Mining Reporter was a mining industry trade journal published weekly in Denver, CO.?ÿ It contained editorials, scientific articles, and mining news.?ÿ The authors were leading scholars, mining engineers, attorneys and businessmen in the mining industry.?ÿ The article quoted below first discusses the problems with the contract surveys overseen by the General Land Office, in particular the large errors, esp. in mountainous terrain of the surveys.?ÿ The gross errors in these contract surveys then manifested itself in determining the locus of mineral surveys since mineral surveys were required to be tied to a PLSS corner or U.S. Location Monument.?ÿ Finally, the article suggests that the Federal government create a Secretary of Mines that would supposedly be a better advocate for the mining industry.?ÿ In other words, the officials in the Department of the Interior (particularly the General Land Office) were patronage appointees with little or no understanding of the mining industry.?ÿ Therefore, a separate Federal department was required to protect the mining industry's interests.Excerpt from The Mining Reporter, Vol. XLII, No. 25, December 20, 1900 (page 386)?ÿPATENT SURVEYSThe Deputy U. S. Mineral Surveyors in certain parts of the State are having considerable trouble at present over some comparatively new rulings, of the Surveyor General's office. As we understand it, the root of the whole difficulty is to be found in the utterly careless and incor??rect way in which the government mineral lands are originally surveyed. The work is done by contract, and given out in blocks to the lowest bidder. The competition is close and keen. Consequently, the price at which it is let is always too small to permit of careful work. As a result, the government section corners in hilly country are never correctly placed. So universally true is this, that when one is found near where it should be, it is a matter of comment and surprise. The Surveyors General of every mountain State are well aware of this bad work, but are powerless to prevent it, because the laws compel them to have it done under the contract system. Of course, when later, mineral claim surveys come in from deputies, it is a heart breaking work to make them conform to the corners and courses of the township plats on file, in fact often an impossibility. The trouble seems at last to have culmin??ated in certain rulings, which the deputies find very diffi??cult to observe. One of these is to the effect that claim corners and monuments must hereafter take a secondary standing to courses and distances. While this is in direct opposition to all court rulings heretofore, the complaint against it mainly arises from the effort being made to en??force it as to claims already surveyed, and perhaps ap??proved.Another ruling which is causing much trouble is to the effect that when a claim is cut into two parts by a survey already approved, it cannot be applied for under one location certificate, there must be a certificate for each part Again, that stakes must be placed on the ground at all intersections of the lines of the claim, with the lines of an approved survey.Everyone who has had experience with the mineral Land Departments is aware of the fact that each year difficulties in the way of patent applications are becoming greater, and the delays more vexatious. Moreover, the ap??proval of a su...

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Strictly Surveying

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geo-u-young

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Being that this still matters so much today, it's a shame more surveyors don't know about this stuff from back then. We got here somehow...

Posted : September 30, 2021 5:17 pm

loyal

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@geo-u-young Go for it!

I'm finishing up a 54 Mineral Survey retracement in which 34 of them were done during the Binger Period.?ÿ

Posted : September 30, 2021 6:20 pm

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Ficticious Ties in Mineral Surveys

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