There's another locating system
that we need to know about, used here in the United States, not for pinpointing a location, but for delineating areas.
It's called the Public Lands Survey or P.L.S. In the early years of the United States,
the government found they had two problems. One was a shortage of money to run the country;
the other was an enormous influx of immigrants from Europe, crowding out the east coast cities,
raising crime, unemployment, nowhere to go. The government came up with a magnificent solution
to both these problems. They said, "We'll survey the western part of the United States — the
empty part — the part where nobody lives yet. We'll parcel it out into nice little lots and
we'll sell those, sight unseen, to immigrants. We'll give them somewhere to live, something
to do, and get money to run the country." That's what they did. They called it
"public land" because that meant land that wasn't owned by anybody. Of course,
that land may not have been "owned", but it certainly wasn't unoccupied.
It was occupied by Native Americans, who didn't subscribe to the European-based concept
of ownership. Our government didn't care. We know what happened; it's one of the ugly chapters in
U.S. history. But anyway, this is what was done. How did it work? The surveyors went out to
a state, or in some cases a territory that wasn't yet a state, and they chose a
spot where they could see — survey, using their instruments — accurately
in an east-west direction, and they laid out an east–west line running right
across the state. They called that the Base Line. It's the X-axis of a grid. They then chose a spot somewhere
along the . . . in the middle of this, where they could map out a line going north–south. (A bit bent, sorry about that.) They
called this the Principal Meridian. Now we've got our X- and Y-axes. OK, possible confusion in terms here:
"principal meridian"; you've already learned about "prime meridian". What's the difference?
— Prime meridian: one only for the planet, zero degrees of longitude, Greenwich, London,
England. Principal meridian: the zero line for any one of dozens of state surveys
here in the U.S. Don't get them confused. There's a little map in your
book showing the base lines and principal meridians for all the
surveys across the United States. The solid red lines are the survey base lines;
the dotted red lines are the principal meridians. There is no public land
survey in the eastern states. Why? — Because they were already
settled at the time the survey was made. There is also no public land survey in Texas.
Texas decided to survey the land in their own way. Here in California — big state, funny shape —
there are actually three separate surveys. Our local one here uses the San Bernardino Base Line
and its principal meridian, but because of all the mountains, there's a different survey
up in central California. As you can see, its start-point is somewhere in the East Bay.
Notice that it surveys both central California and Nevada — which weren't states
at the time of the survey. And because of the mountains, there's another
survey up in the northwest corner in Mendocino county, that doesn't connect to the rest. One
survey for Oregon and Washington, and so on. You may know where to find our local
base line, the San Bernardino Base Line. It is followed by Base Line Road. Base Line Road is
the next major street north of Foothill Boulevard. Here is the off-ramp to Base Line Road
from the I-15 freeway in Rancho Cucamonga. OK, now we've got a base line, we've
got a principal meridian. The surveyors marked off six-mile divisions along the
principal meridian, going north and south, which enabled them to divide the country
up into a series of strips, like this, going west and east. These strips, six
miles from north to south, called tiers — t-i-e-r — tiers like the rows of seats
in a stadium — rows one above another. These tiers are numbered, away from the base line: Tier # 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, going north,
and Tier # 1, Tier # 2, etc. going south. Notice that it is the AREA that is labeled; I'm
not putting these numbers on the lines. We're not labeling the lines, we're labeling the areas. Tier 1 N
is this six-mile strip of real estate. OK? All right, next the surveyors went back to the
base line, and they marked off six-mile increments going east and west along the base line. That
enabled them to draw in north-south strips of land six miles wide. . . . and so on, and these — six miles that way — these are called ranges, and they are numbered away
from the principal meridian. Range . . . Range 1, Range 2,
Range 3, Range 4, going eastwards; and Range 1, Range 2, Range
3, and so on, going westwards. OK? The intersection of a tier with a range forms
a square six miles by six miles and that square is called a township — 6 miles by 6 miles — a township. OK? There doesn't
have to be a town there; nobody even has to live there. A township is simply a square, formed where
a tier and a range intersect one another. OK? All right, what is the area of a township?
— 6 times 6 — 36 square miles. Yes? There's a diagram in your book explaining this.
That diagram is extremely misleading! This is part of that diagram, and it's misleading because
it depicts the townships as a neat little group of four in each corner around the base line and the
principal meridian. The reality is that these lines continue on — on — on.
Not a very good drawing, but they continue on as far as
the survey extends. Look at this map of southern California: the squares are the townships. And
it's not a four-by-four square in here. These townships number off way out here to the Arizona
state line, and up here to the Nevada line, and in this direction until they meet the central
California survey coming in the other direction. This township that I've highlighted
here — how do we identify it? Well we use its tier number and its range
number. This particular township is Tier 2 North (T2N) Range 3 East (R3E) Yeah? Tier 2 North, Range 3 East. OK, so now we have our townships,
and they're all over the state, next to one another. These lines continue,
right? Six miles this way, six miles that way. Area: 6 times 6 = 36 square miles. Each
township is treated the exact same way: it's divided into 36 sections, that's
six each way. I'm going to draw this: you divide in half first of all, and then
you estimate two subdivisions within that. Same thing the other way:
divide in half, estimate two. There are 36 sections. OK, we
said this is a township, right? The sections: well, what's the . . . what are
their dimensions? If this is six miles, divided into six, each of these squares is one mile by
one mile. So its area is how many square miles? 1 times 1 = 1 square mile. OK? The
sections are numbered. Every township in the entire United States, numbered
the same way. Number one is here. Now that's weird: normally we number
things starting from the top left. Why did this start from the top right? — I don't
know, but I'm going to speculate that, since home was back east, and they
were working their way westwards, this was in the home direction, so this is
where they started from. I don't know, my guess. OK, so they numbered off: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.What
next? Is this 7? No. Those surveyors were on horseback or on foot; they didn't want to waste
time; so instead of wasting time riding back here, they just simply turned around here, and went
back the way they'd come: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And now I think it's obvious what
happened. They'd turn around again: 13, 14, 15, and around again: 19 through 24, going westwards again: 25 through 30, and finally going eastwards: 31 ending up at 36. OK? Every township in the
Public Lands Survey, numbered like this: #1 in the top right, #36 in the
bottom right, numbered like that. Each of these subdivisions here is
a smaller square called a Section.