Excerpt from A Practical Treatise on Abstracts and Examinations of Title to Real Property I have no apology to make for the appearance of this book, but a word or two of explanation may be in order. The subject which I have here undertaken to elaborate, is new to the legal literature of the United States, although abstracts of title have long been employed by the profession in all matters pertaining to title of real property. But with each successive year it has assumed vaster proportions, and, as the country continued steadily to develop, it has gradually been shaping itself into a distinct branch of legal science, that calls for a high degree of technical skill and special learning. And this has reference both to conveyancers and lawyers; the one to properly and systematically compile, and the other to interpret, the evidences of title which go to support claims of ownership in land. No American author has heretofore seen fit to epitomize, for the special use of conveyancers and the legal profession, the questions of law which arise during the perusal of an abstract, or to direct the attention of either class toward a systematic method of presenting those questions. Eminent writers on real property have passed the subject in silence, and the few American writers on conveyancing who have heretofore ventured to touch upon it, have dismissed it with the fewest possible words, and, as a rule, whatever remarks they may have made were usually but servile echoes of English writers. Several works, of more than ordinary merit, have appeared in England, in which the subject, from an English standpoint, is very thoroughly and ably discussed, but the irreconcilable differences in our laws and institutions have rendered them comparatively worthless to the American practitioner, and they are rarely met with on this side of the Atlantic. The methods of English conveyancers and solicitors, while admirably adapted to the exigencies of their own laws and customs, and highly conducive to the end desired, are but ill suited to our wants and furnish little assistance in tracing the devious courses of an American title. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.