any settlers from New York
and Pennsylvania. In the early times when Kentucky was settled, the
pioneer would select a piece of land wherever he liked, and after
having a rude survey made, and the limits marked by "blazing" the
trees with a hatchet, the survey would be put on record in the state
land-office. So little care was taken that half a dozen patents would
sometimes be given for the same tract. Pieces of land, of all shapes
and sizes, lay between the patents.... Such a system naturally begat
no end of litigation, and there remain in Kentucky curious vestiges of
it to this day. [5]

[Footnote 5: Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, p. 261.]

[Sidenote: Method of surveying the public lands.]
[Sidenote: Origins of Western townships.]
In order to avoid such confusion in the settlement of the territory
north of the Ohio river, Congress passed the land-ordinance of 1785,
which was based chiefly upon the suggestions of Thomas Jefferson, and
laid the foundation of our simple and excellent system for surveying
national lands. According to this system as gradually perfected, the
government surveyors first mark out a north and south line which is
called the _principal meridian_. Twenty-four such meridians have been
established. The first was the dividing line between Ohio and Indiana;
the last one runs through Oregon a little to the west of Portland. On
each side of the principal meridian there are marked off subordinate
meridians called _range [6] Then a true parallel of latitude is drawn,
crossing these meridians at right angles. It is called the _base line_,
or standard parallel. Eleven such base lines, for example, run across
the great state of Oregon. Finally, on each side of the base line are
drawn subordinate parallels called _township lines_, six miles apart,
and numbered north and south from their base line. By these range lines
and township lines the whole land is thus divided into townships just
six miles square, and the townships are all numbered. Take, for example,
the township of Deerfield in Michigan. That is the fourth township north
of the base line, and it is in the fifth range east of the first
principal meridian. It would be called township number 4 north range 5
east, and was so called before it was settled and received a name.
Evidently one must go 24 miles from the principal meridian, or 18 miles
from the base line, in order to enter this township. It is all as simple
as the numbering of streets in Philadelph