The Surveyor and the Law

It is not intended that this paper shall discuss, primarily, the law of boundaries. That is a very broad subject, capably treated in at least three books which, in whole or in part, are directly concerned with the subject.² The subject is also included, as incidental material to even broader subjects, in many treatises and compilations to which one commonly turns in efforts to learn the law. It is desired to present herein a discussion of those aspects of law which tend to indicate and to define the duties and the responsibilities of surveyors in their share of the work of establishing, describing, and recovering the boundaries of land. This is work in which there must be combined (with mutual understanding if best results are to be secured) the training, the experience, and the well-counseled efforts of practitioners of law and of engineering. This paper is a humble attempt to contribute a little to this end by discussion of some impacts of the law on the work of the engineer.