Section
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
The unit of measurement in the government surveys of the United States public lands. The general features of the system prescribed divide the public lands into townships six miles square; and each township into sections of six hundred and forty acres each. The sections are subdivided, for sale, into half-sections (three hundred and twenty acres) and quarter-sections (one hundred and sixty acres), and still further into what are called in the statutes half quarter-sections and quarter quarter-sections; but these last are, in practice, quite as often called eighties and forties, from the number of acres they respectively comprise; or are called fractions of a section.
2.
In references to law-books, section is usually the smallest subdivision embracing a distinct subject; and separately paragraphed and numbered. Modern treatises, the codes, and the more extended and systematic statutes are very generally divided into books or parts; these into titles and chapters; and these last into sections, which is as far as any distinct subdivision usually runs.