Why are there “jogs,” or misalignments in the County Roads?
The original surveys were performed not with measuring tape but with 100-link lengths of chain. Each length of chain measured 66 feet, and 80 chains equaled a mile. This also explains why an acre is 10(66×66), or 10 square chains, and each section is approximately 640 acres. Corrections were applied to allow for curvature of the earth and variances in direction of north, based on astronomic observations (such as limiting townships to only six miles across, which diminished the factor known as convergence – the angular difference to north between one point and another), yet some of the township surveys still did not quite line up with one another. This is to be expected whenever one attempts to place a rectangular grid, like that of the township system, on the round surface of the earth. This is why some of the sections along the edges of townships, or closing sections, are smaller or larger in area, and why some of the county roads do not quite line up. These misalignments between town
