Record: limestone 14x12x6 in stone mound:
Marked stone in pile:
Fast Eddie was always in a hurry and didn't spend much time scribing stones
Next is a limestone 30x30x12 in earth mound and pits, didn't find mound or pits but did find the huge stone:
not sure what that thing weighs but it was easier to pull it out of it's hole with my winch than try to move it by hand. Tiny little notches, just like every other one in the area from 1881.
Whoa, whoa what do you mean by yanking it out with a winch. Is that a routine practice, removing stones? Do you replace them with another monument in the same location?
@beartow
In many of the western states, the corner monuments got buried under the shifting soils of the Dust Bowl during the 1930's. Surveyors in those areas often have to extract the stones from some depth to examine them for the identifying marks, which are often faint as noted in the original post. They usually replace them in the hole, then set a pipe or rod up at grade to perpetuate it's location, and note their actions on the corner records that they file.
@beartow
It had "fallen" over on it's side and 1/4 of the stone was visible, I had to lift it out of its hole and measure and examine it. I considered resetting it as is, but I figured it would be good to re-monument it with a 3" aluminum cap, leaving the stone there, just buried as a memorial.
I'm probably the one guy who will often simply accept a set marked stone as is, or reset one that has "fallen". The stones in this area were either set in a mound of earth, like this one, and you can imagine what happens then, they are usually laying flat or loose on the ground, or the stone would be set in a mound of stone, those are usually in a better condition. The BLM will always replace the stone with a new cap and bury the stone, most local surveyors will do a similar re-monumentation.?ÿ
?ÿ
Okay, I was a little confused as in the photos it appeared that the stones were in their original position (or nearly so). I'm not a BLM kinda guy so it seemed a bit odd to go moving existing monuments.
@beartow
The big monument was disturbed in some fashion, I figure it simply leaned over as the mound eroded away under it, there is no slope to make it move or slide and I don't think anyone simply picked the thing up and shifted it. So I put my cap in the hole it came out of and the stone is there alongside it now.
Here is the search area of the 1/4 to the south. It was recorded as a small sandstone in an earth mound, the stake is the prorated position, there are probably a couple of hundred stones in the nearby area. We lucked out and found the monument with a 4 on the west side still visible but the monument is in poor condition so it got a new cap, why they didn't mound a pile of stones for that one is a mystery. The stone was found about 30' from the prorate.
