Locations of wells and other features in Small County are represented using what is commonly referred to as the legal coordinate system, formally the U.S. Public Land Survey System, established by the Land Ordinance of 1785. In this system, parcels of land are identified according a rectangular grid of townships, sections within each township, and successive quarter subdivisions within each section. Detailed information about the Public Land Survey System in Kansas can be found in Kansas Geological Survey Public Information Circular 20. We provide a brief summary here.
A township is typically a square six miles on a side. Like many Kansas counties, Small County is a square 30 miles on a side and so is divided into a 5 by 5 grid of townships. Each township is identified by a township number and a range number. Throughout the state, township numbers increase to the south, counting from the Kansas-Nebraska border. In the western two-thirds of the state, including Small County, range numbers increase to the west, counting from the Sixth Principal Meridian. The identity of a township is usually represented as "T. 9 S., R. 5 W." or "T9S R5W", either of which would be read "township nine south, range five west". Note the two distinct meanings of "township" here, one referring to the 6 x 6-mile square and the second to the number representing the north-south location of that square. In the Small County exercise, we use the more compact representation of the township and range numbers, without periods and commas. The 25 townships in Small County range from T15S R15W in the southwest corner to T11S R11S in the northeast corner:
Each township is subdivided into 36 one-mile square (640 acre) sections. The sections are numbered 1-36 in a back and forth pattern:
Each section is further subdivided into quarters, each one-half mile on a side, as illustrated for Section 25 above. The northeast quarter of this section would be identified as "T12S R13W, Sec. 25, NE", as shown. In fact, legal locations are usually given more precisely use successive quarter subdivisions of each quarter. However, locations in the Small County exercise are only identified to the quarter section. Since you are only allowed to drill one well per quarter section, the game board for the exercise is the 60 x 60 grid of quarter sections covering the county (excluding those quarters containing towns, lakes, or previously drilled wells).