Book Description

The U.S. Public Land Survey System (USPLSS) was born in 1785 and has been evolving ever since. The General Land Office (GLO) and, later, the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) system of laying out our sections, townships and ranges has been refined, changed, modified, improved, and, of course, has benefited from improvements in equipment and advances in technology. There have been eight editions of USPLSS instructions published from 1785 - 2009 by either the GLO of the BLM. The results are regional differences in the USPLSS across our United States. from Ohio (where our System began with its initial field surveys) to Alaska (where surveying work continues). And, there are differences in the USPLSS from state to state as legislatures have enacted statutes pertaining to the System in their state, and each state's courts have interpreted the statutes, or, established a resurvey legal principle through case law. While the broad view of the USPLSS is similar, each state will have its own peculiarities, specific to only that state. Textbooks and reference manuals about the USPLSS in general and about generic resurvey procedures on the System are available. Textbooks or reference manuals about the USPLSS which are state-specific and cover the original GLO instructions, resurvey procedures and applicable state statutes and case law are not available. Until now...for Missouri. This book is a complete synthesis of the USPLSS for Missouri. Briefly, it contains: The early history of the System, from 1785 - 1815; The French and Spanish in Pre-America Missouri; The "shaping" of Missouri...its boundaries; Laying out the original GLO surveys; GLO protraction and platting; Missouri court decisions relative to the USPLSS; Historical review of Missouri statute law relative to the USPLSS (1814 to date); "Best practices" for reestablishing lost and restoring obliterated corners of the USPLSS; Example calculation problems applying coordinate geometry to lost corner reestablishment; Example GLO plats with notes. This comprehensive coverage of the USPLSS for Missouri will provide the surveying student, educator and practitioner (and those preparing for licensure as a Professional Surveyor in Missouri) with a single book that will fill the reference void that existed in the past. The book has seven chapters, three tables, twenty-eight figures, forty-eight protraction and example problems, eighty-nine example GLO plats, four appendices and a Glossary and "Further Reading" list.