Two methods of description are employed in deeds: one by metes and bounds, the other by references to maps or monuments. The following is a specimen of a description by metes and bounds: All that certain plot, piece, or parcel of land situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: —Beginning at a point on the northerly side of Thirty fourth street, distant eighty-five feet westerly from the corner formed by the intersection of the northerly side of Thirty-fourth Street with the westerly side of Fifth Avenue; running thence northerly parallel with Fifth Avenue one hundred feet ; thence westerly parallel with Thirty-fourth Street fifty feet ; thence southerly again parallel with Fifth Avenue, one hundred feet to the northerly side of Thirty-fourth Street and then easterly along said side of Thirty-fourth Street fifty feet to the point or place of beginning.
this description the location of the property can be ascertained with exactness. A definite point of beginning is determined, i.e., a point on the northerly side of Thirty-fourth Street, eighty-five feet westerly from the northwesterly corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. From that point the description proceeds by metes (measures) and bounds (directions) around the entire plot. The measures are exact and the directions are abso lutely fixed. A description like this is of course the most satisfactory. The example given is a very sim ple one; in some cases a metes and bounds description may be used for a farm or a tract of land of many acres. The directions and distances may then be stated with reference to the point of the compass as, "north five degrees six minutes west, 857 feet." A description by reference to a map may be used when the property is part of a tract that has been mapped, as— Lots one to ten inclusive in Block 76 on map of Jones Estate, made by George Edwards, Civil Engineer and Surveyor, filed in the Office of the Clerk of Albany County, on February 11, 1893.
Such a description conveys the land as it is shown on the map to which reference is made. The map is usually, but not always, filed as part of the public records.
A description by monuments is one which not only depends on metes and bounds, but is controlled by natural monuments and cannot be ascertained except by a knowledge of matters of geography or topog raphy outside the recorded description. A descrip tion which reads: Beginning on the side of the road running from West chester to Yonkers, at the northwest corner of the farm of John Smith, and thence southerly along John Smith's farm to a rock at the corner of Jones's farm, and thence westerly along Jones's farm to a blazed tree at Robin son's barn, etc.,
is a description which depends for its identity en tirely upon matters outside the record title to the property. It is controlled not by the distances stated, but by the natural monuments. Descriptions of this sort are frequent, and if the property can be identified and the natural monuments on the ground can be found, it is sufficient. One hundred years from now it may be troublesome to construe such a description and in order to identify a tract it may be necessary to examine the title to all the surrounding property, and make surveys and topographical maps of all the surroundings. However, if it can be ascer tained in any dependable way in accordance with all known methods which an engineer may suggest, what was the subject of that conveyance, it is valid, and will convey the property described.
A description which is absolute in its metes and bounds is the one extreme; a description which de pends entirely upon monuments, natural or artificial, is the other extreme. Between these there are many descriptions which partake of the character of both.
Reference to other conveyances or to some map helps to/identify the property to be conveyed; after a description by metes and bounds, the deed may state that it is the property which was conveyed to the seller by a certain deed, citing it by its parties, its date and place of record. Then if a mistake has been made in copying the description from the other deed, the mistake will correct itself by the reference to the deed mentioned.
6. Uncertain, ambiguous and inconsistent description by which the property may be identified is good, but an uncertain description which renders the property incapable of identifica tion makes the instrument void. If a description is merely ambiguous, it does not follow that it is so un certain as to be void. In the attempt to support the transaction it is only fair that reference should be made to matters outside the instrument itself which will result in the identification of the subject matter. Again, there may be several elements in the descrip tion in the deed which are inconsistent in themselves. In such a case it would be pertinent to inquire into the real intent of the parties.