United States Statutes at Large/Volume 5/26th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 36
Chap. XXXVI.—An Act for the discontinuance of the office of Surveyor General in the several districts, so soon as the surveys therein can be completed, for abolishing land offices under certain circumstances and for other purposes.
1853, ch. 24.
Sec. of Treas. to take measures for the completion of certain surveys.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to take all the necessary measures for the completion of the surveys, in the several districts for which surveyors have been, or may be, appointed, at the earliest periods compatible with the purposes contemplated by law; and whenever the surveys and records of any such district or State shall be completed, the surveyor general thereof shall be required to deliver over to the Secretary of State of the respective States, including such surveys, or such other officer as may be authorized to receive them, all the field notes, maps, records, and other papers, appertaining to land titles, in the same; and the office of surveyor general, in every such district, shall thereafter cease and be discontinued.
Certain land offices to be discontinued.
Post, p. 455.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever the quantity of public land remaining unsold in any land district shall be reduced to a number of acres less than one hundred thousand, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to discontinue the land office of such district; and if any land, in any such district, shall remain unsold at the time of the discontinuance of a land office, the same shall be subject to sale at some one of the existing land offices most convenient to the district in which the land office shall have been discontinued, of which the Secretary of the Treasury shall give notice.
Approved, June 12, 1840.