On May 17, 3:11*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 2008 12:06:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
It's interesting to see a map of the United States not cut up into
states, but cut up from survey. In the east, it's not uniform shapes
or sizes, once you start going west, it changes to square blocks.

A lot of that is simply the way the government "sectioned" the land
and sold it off. That is really apparent in the square flat states
where they have the sections all divided by dirt roads. The grain belt
states look like checkerboards form 30,000 feet, only punctuated by
the green circles you get from center point irrigation.

It has a lot to do with surveying techniques. In the east, which was
developed first, there are still surveys that read something like "200
feet east to the large maple tree......" etc. My uncle's farm's
original survey still mentioned a rock pile!