When the work of subdividing townships was taken up, a large number of men were employed, and some of the parties were not very careful of their work. In some places the lines are as crooked as the proverbial ram's horn and have caused innumerable controversies and litigation over the boundary lines. There have been overlapping claims, and strips of "no man's land," and resurveys ; the carelessness of those irresponsible parties has brought trouble' without end. Corners have become "lost'' and some early settlers improvised corners where they thought they ought to be, and where they had selected their claims. When in the sand hills occasionally the original corners were found, it so upset the calculations of the settlements that they importuned the government to make a resurvey and establish the lines where they would meet the lines of the tracts which the settlers occupied. Washington authorized the now famous "Alt Survey."

Inasmuch as this survey took many acres of fine hay meadows out of state school lands and gave them to claimants, the state resisted the action of the government. A bill was introduced in the legislature approving the survey as to Grant and Hooker counties, and this too was resisted for the same reason. The legal department employed Frank Edgerton to protect the state. Frank evidently felt he could take on more clients and he accepted the work of chiropractics in helping to legalize their profession. The result was disastrous to the state. The chiropractics won. the state lost. No other county has been able to secure adoption of this abortive survey, although they have sought, or individuals have sought from time to time to make the Alt lines stand in counties where the statute has not sanctioned it. So far they have failed.