Cadastral survey

“ To ensure that the Federal Government continues to collect the most accurate information available concerning citizenship going forward, the Secretary of Commerce shall consider initiating any administrative process necessary to include a citizenship question on the 2030 decennial census and to consider any regulatory changes necessary to ensure that citizenship data is collected in any other surveys and data-gathering efforts conducted by the Census Bureau, including the American Community Survey. ”

“ In 1853 a statistical conference held at Brussels and attended by twenty-six delegates from the chief States of Europe considered the question of national maps or cadastres, and pronounced unanimously in favor of a scale of 1/2500th of nature equivalent to about 251/3 inches to a mile, recommending at the same time that the cadastre on this scale should be accompanied by a more general map on the scale of 1/10,000 equivalent to about six 1/3 inches to a mile, and thus very nearly corresponding to the six inch scale of the Ordnance Survey. ”

“ This information being all classified and arranged in proper descriptive books, forms a large collection of documents, which, being preserved with the records of the Survey, may be at any time referred to or published; and as there is scarcely any more fertile source of confusion than uncertainty of nomenclature, it may be hoped that, as the boundaries of the Ordnance Survey are recognised by several Acts of Parliament, the names now engraved on the authorized maps of that Survey may also become generally adopted in all legal and authentic papers. ”

“ It was made the duty of the surveyor to whom such application was made, by a responsible party, to survey the land designated, within three months thereafter, and within 60 days after the survey to certify and record a map and field notes of the survey, and return and file them in the general land office of the state. ”

“ So there were lead mines and salt springs excluded from entry. Then, again, the notice of entry might be in a form inconsistent with the laws of the United States: in all which cases no survey could be made in conformity to it. If no such objection existed it was the duty of the surveyor to conform to the election made by the claimant, having the location certificate from the recorder. Still the only evidence of the location recognised by the government as an appropriation was the plat and certificate of the surveyor. ”

“ The barony maps being on such a scale as shall keep them on a single sheet of paper, is similar to the practice of the recent Ordnance Survey, in which the County Index Maps were, in like manner, made on such scales as should bring each within a single sheet, for the obvious reason that if they were on such an uniform scale as should make any of them extend over more than one sheet, an index to the index would become neessary, and if the scale of the largest county were adopted for all, the smaller counties would be insignificantly small. ”

“ By this combination of forces the census with the survey, the director will furnish the census bureau and Congress with a thorough exposition of the production of metals, coal and petroleum, and the most important branches of the mineral industry. In this combined labor care has been exercised that only census employés should be detailed to work in the region east of the one-hundredth meridian. The work of gathering the statistics proper is fast approaching completion. ”

“ Worsley was then working, and defines the course he had to follow. It provides, in three preliminary recommendations, for ascertaining the lands to be surveyed, and defines in six articles the kind of survey required; by which it is clear that a survey by estates is what the Committee considered necessary, no territorial boundaries being required; and that barren land was not to be surveyed unless lying within profitable land, and then only for the sake of being excluded from it, such land, whether so situate or beyond the mearing of the estate, having to be "cast in." ”

“ That for the better enquiry and finding out of the said forfeited land in each county, the said surveyors may have power to sit in such and soe many parts of the counties as they shall conceive requisite, there to call the inhabitants of the countrey, to summon juries, to keep courts of survey, and to administer oath to such persons as they shall find necessary, for the better and fuller information of themselfs of the particulars of each man's estate which is forfeited.⁠3dly. ”

“ The births are to be estimated by adding to the number of persons less than one year of age at the time of the enumeration those who were born and died during the census year. Of course vital statistics obtained by such methods must be imperfect and crude; but this whole matter is forced on the census by the fact that we have no uniform registration of births, deaths, and marriages in the United States, and owing to our federal form of government are not likely to have. It is the best we can do. ”

“ But the census has long outgrown that clause, and it would be impossible to justify even the questions on the population schedule as necessary to an enumeration of the people. With the employment of special agents the necessity for a uniform date has ceased, and it is the opinion of such men as General Walker and Commissioner Wright that it would be better to make these special inquiries at some other time, when the Census Office is less overwhelmed with work. ”

“ When those unvouched lands shall appeare to bee obscure members of unforfeited lands never named in the civill survey, it was safer to presume that such omitted denominations were rather forfeited and concealed then otherwise, and it was better to pay for the measure of them then wholly to want the knowledge and cognizance of any case wherein the State may have a right of a thousand times more value then that litle charge of the measure. ”

“ An accurate census helps to ensure that the rights and needs of every person are recorded and recognized as we shape public policies, programs, and services. Too often in the past, children, minorities, and low-income individuals have not been counted and, as a result, have not been fully and fairly served. Census data are also used to determine the number of seats each State is allocated in the U.S. House of Representatives, and State and local governments depend upon these data to draw legislative districts that accurately represent their residents. ”

“ At the same time, the Bureau will continue its long tradition of protecting the personal information of America's citizens, and no other Government agency will be able to see any individual or family census form. I strongly urge every man and woman living in the United States to fill out and return his or her census form or to cooperate with census takers who will help them do so. ”

“ It is important for legal/administrative entities, particularly those comprising the basic State/county/MCD/place hierarchy. Consistency is especially relevant to statistical areas, where the Census Bureau is largely responsible for establishing and implementing the criteria, standards, and guidelines that define these areas. Using a uniform approach to control the identification and delineation of, and data presentations for, those geographic areas that are numerous and widespread (such as census blocks, BGs, census tracts and BNAs, CCDs, CDPs, UAs, and MAs) ensures a national consistency. ”

“ Notwithstanding desultory enumerations and the unsystematic collection of information by foreign countries and by the home government through our colonial period, the credit of the first regularly organized periodical census is due to the United States, and our government has, commencing with 1790, made regular enumerations of the population, and, beginning with the year 1850, has conducted what may be properly called a national census, comprehending many features beyond the mere enumeration of the inhabitants. ”

“ The census also serves as the basis for many public funding and private investment decisions. Census results play a part in determining the portion each State receives of more than $185 billion in funds distributed by the Federal Government each year. State and local public officials use census data to decide where to build public facilities such as schools, roads, hospitals, and libraries. Census data also are a valuable resource for businesses that are trying to identify where to build stores, office buildings, or shopping centers. ”

“ The new census of the United States is as ambitious as the census of 1880, and in some directions attempts to do even more than that stupendous undertaking did. Investigating industrial and social phenomena from all sides, it seeks to give, as it were, a complete picture of the national resources and the national life. No other country in the world attempts under the name of census to do one-tenth part of the work which the bureau at Washington, improvised at a few months' notice, cheerfully and confidently undertakes; and the census returns of no other nation make such an array of volumes. ”

“ Because they are defined by criteria or guidelines rather than legal statutes, they also are subject to more contention when the Census Bureau, another governmental agency, or data users want to change them or use them in a way that is inconsistent with their original purpose. To survive, statistical entities must prove satisfactory from a number of perspectives. ”

“ Then it dawned upon the lad that the libraries of scientific records of which Survey workers are the authors must needs require time and labor, and the compilation of statistics needed in other parts of the government service also takes up time. So that Roger began to see that the proofreading of all geologic and topographic maps, all illustrations and all text of Survey papers have to be done and revised by competent men, in order that the scientific accuracy of these can never be impeached. ”

“ As both of these groups of questions were intended to be the basis for supplementary inquiries, I will speak of them further on. Such is the explanation of the complicated and unwieldy population schedule which the Census Office sent out and expected to have answered for every individual in the United States, man, woman, and child, white or black, native or foreign-born, intelligent or ignorant. The final reports will doubtless show failure in many directions. ”

“ Worsley in examining the survey as a whole, before the work was finally received by the State. The separate survey and protraction of common boundaries, enjoined by the sixth section, was a palpable and simple check, one indeed at which surveyors are very apt to repine, but which it is never safe to abandon for any clamour for saving of time. The precautions of the seventh section are all efficient and good. The eighth section provides that the meresmen should, as far as possible, be those employed by the Civil Survey Commissioners. ”

“ If the creation of efficient state bureaus, of the kind indicated, in the several states could only be secured, it is not chimerical to believe that through the dominating influence of the federal census bureau, tactfully exerted, a uniform system of statistical records relating to crime could ultimately be established throughout the United States. It is the first step that counts. ”

“ What could have been more simple than to go twenty or thirty yards farther away than you had been told, just as you did, for instance, and yet, if you had not been lucky, you would have disappeared forever in that quagmire and by your death spoiled our record."
"Have many lives been lost in Survey work?" asked Roger.
"In the nearly thirty years of the existence of the Geological Survey, as a separate branch of the Department of the Interior," replied Field, "during which time explorations of the most extreme peril have been undertaken, only one life has been lost. ”

“ Under the statute authorizing this Census, recipients of census questionnaires are required to answer the questions in those questionnaires that apply to them, their families, and their farms to insure the accurate compilation of these statistics. The sole purpose of the Census is to secure general statistical information regarding agriculture and related resources of the country. No person can be harmed in any way by furnishing the information required. ”

“ Every 10 years, as mandated by our Constitution, all persons living in the United States are called upon to participate in the census. As the foremost method of gathering information about our Nation, the census plays a crucial role in helping us to maintain our democratic form of government. ”

“ They require the boundaries of legal and administrative entities to manage a wide variety of programs and to conduct elections. The Census Bureau generally accepts, according to documentation by the appropriate authorities, the boundaries of these entities as they exist. Although the Census Bureau’s data tabulations for legal and administrative entities are sufficient to satisfy the needs of many data users, information for these jurisdictions alone does not meet all data needs. Therefore, the Census Bureau also presents data for a second geographic category, statistical entities. ”

“ The general plan of the report of the Ninth census, as shown by those portions of it which are already in print, exhibits many interesting and valuable improvements in classification and arrangement over any preceding report, and the condition of the general work of the Census Bureau is so well advanced that the full reports of the census will be given to the public at a much earlier day than ever before. ”