§ 11-20-07 — Form of surveys

All surveys made by the county surveyor must be made in accordance with the rules and
regulations laid down by the commissioner of the United States general land office and in
accordance with the following principles, when applicable:
1. All corners and boundaries which can be identified by the original field notes or other
unquestionable testimony shall be regarded as the original corners and must not be
changed while they can be so identified. The surveyor shall not give undue weight to
partial and doubtful evidence or to appearances of monuments the recognition of
which requires the presumption of marked errors in the original survey, and shall note
an exact description of such apparent monuments.
2. Extinct intersection corners must be re-established at proportional distances as
recorded in the original field notes from the nearest known points in the original section
line, east and west and north and south from such extinct section corners.

3. Any extinct quarter section corner, except on fractional section lines, must be
re-established equidistant and in a right line between the section corners, and in all
other cases, at proportional distances between the nearest known points in the original
lines.
4. Central quarter corners of whole sections, and of fractional sections adjoining the north
and west boundaries of townships, must be re-established at the intersection of two
right lines connecting their opposite quarter section corners, respectively. County
surveyors shall perpetuate the original corners from which they may work by noting
new bearing trees when timber is near. They also shall perpetuate the principal
corners which they make in like manner.
5. In the subdivision of fractional sections bounded on any side by a meandered lake or
river or the boundary of a reservation or irregular survey, the subdivision lines running
toward and closing upon the same shall be run at courses in all points intermediate
and equidistant, as near as may be, between the like section lines established by the
original survey.