I am now working on a R/W project that involves a very long stretch of curved highway R/W. One of the R/W curves has a radius of something in the neighborhood of 25000.000 m. Attempting to create descriptions that parallel and close on this line (while working in imperial units) produces a minor amount of error. It can either be dealt with using non-tangent curve section distances (boo)...or do what the highway department would prefer...write them in metric (double boo).
Maybe we should trade projects....you know, a fresh set of eyes...I'm sick of this one too.
I think the USC&GS has always been metric.
I didn't find a single technical chart, table, or reference to feet, or Fahrenheit. Even the graphic scale on maps have kilometers. (Except in summaries of area completed sq mi)
USC&GS Report of 1899.