The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the government and laid off into sections and townships as has been the case with all the lands north of the Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued land warrants, or certificates entitling the holder to locate wherever he might choose, the number of acres named in the warrant. They also grave to actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such lands as they might occupy and improve by building a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The holders of these warrants, after selecting the land which they intended to cover, with their titles, were required to enter a survey and description of the tracts selected, in the Land office, which had been opened for the purpose, to be recorded there, for the information of others, and to prevent subsequent holders of warrants from locating the same lands. Yet notwithstanding these precautions, such was the careless manner in which these surveys were made, that many illiterate persons, ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity of precision in the specification and descriptions of the tracts on which they had laid their warrants, made such loose and vague entries in the land office, as to afford no accurate information to subsequent locators, who frequently laid their warrants on the same tracts. It thus happened that the whole or a part of almost every tract was covered with different and conflicting titles--forming what have been aptly called 'shingle titles'--overlaying and lapping upon each other, as shingles do upon the roof of a building. In this way twice the existing acres of land were sold and the door opened for endless controversy about boundaries and titles. The following copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the vagueness of the lines, buts, and bounds of their claims, and as accounting for the flood of litigation that ensued. "George Smith enters nine hundred acres of land on a treasury warrant, lying on the north side of Kentucky river, a mile below a creek; beginning about twenty poles below a lick; and running down the river westwardly, and northwestwardly for quantity." It will easily be seen that a description, so general and indefinite in its terms, could serve as no guide to others who might wish to avoid entering the same lands. This defect in providing for the certainty and safety of land titles, proved a sore evil to the state of Kentucky. As these lands increased in value and importance, controversies arose as to the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerable suits, great strife and excitement, prevailed in every neighborhood, and continued until within a late period, to agitate the whole body of society. The legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and judicious legislation upon the subject, have finally quieted the titles of the actual occupants.