Where the grid meets the curvature of the earth

Public Land Survey System


In the U.S., there are roads that go on straight for miles and miles on end, and then suddenly they splinter, as if sheared by an ancient earthquake. These sites of displacements are merely where the greatest manufactured landscape in the history of the world — Jefferson's continental quilt — self-corrects against the curvature of the earth from deforming its neat rectangular townships and sections into unequal trapezoids.