Measurement Anomalies
Due to such factors as survey errors, poor instrumentation, difficult terrain, and sloppy work by surveyors, it is common for actual sections to differ from the PLSS ideal of one square mile. The distortions and errors were, by design, distributed to the northern and western edges of each township. As a result the sections in these areas diverge the most from the ideal shape and size. In addition there was a need to regularly adjust the entire township grid to account for distortions caused by the curvature of the Earth and the convergence of meridians toward the poles. In places where the grid was corrected, or where two grids based on different principal meridians came together, section shapes are often highly warped. Despite the survey errors and flaws, once the grid was established it remained in force mainly because the monuments of the original survey, when recovered, hold legal precedent over subsequent resurveys.
Read more about this topic: Section (United States Land Surveying)
Famous quotes containing the word measurement:
“That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)