Chap. 227.—An ACT to Provide for the Care and Preservation of the
Books and Papers of County Surveyors, and for the Appointment of
Special Surveyors.

Approved July 9, 1870.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
until the office of county surveyor shall be provided by law,
and officers elected thereto, for the counties of the common-
wealth, it shall be the duty ‘of the county court clerk of each
county of the commonwealth, to take charge of and preserve
the surveyor’s books and papers of his county, and grant copies
from said. books of records therein, which, when attested by
the said clerk, shall be admissible in evidence in all cases, and
with the same effect as if they had been certified by a surveyor
regularly qualified. The clerks, in such cases, shall be subject
to the same regulations, and liable to the same penalties and
damages for negligence or misbebavior, as a surveyor would
be, and shall be entitled to the same fees.

2. It shall be the duty of said clerk, within twenty days af-
ter the passage of this act, to apply to the last surveyor of his
county, or to such other person as he may know to be in pos-
session of said books and papers, for the delivery of the same.
Any clerk failing to make such application within the time
specified, and any such surveyor or person failing to make im-
mediate delivery of said books, when such application is made
for the same, shall be liable to a fine of thirty dollars.

3. When a survey is necessary to be made, before the office
of surveyor shall be constituted, and officers thereto elected,
the county or circuit court of the county in which such survey
is to be made, shall appoint a special surveyor to make it. His
survey, when made and returned according to the order of
court and other legal requirements, shall be as effectual as it
would have been, under laws heretofore existing, when made
by a county surveyor.

4. Such special surveyor, in the performance of the duties
for which he is appointed, shall be subject to the laws hereto-
fore existing, applicable to the county surveyor in the per-
formance of similar duties.
5. Sections seven and eight of chapter one hundred and
eleven, of the Code of eighteen hundred and sixty, and all
other acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of
this act, are hereby repealed.

6. This act shall be in force from its passage.