broken glass bottle memorial pics?

My crews recovered a number of NON broken bottle memorials on a job north of yuma back in the mid 1980's. I have one of them. I think they were from the 1910 era. Might have pictures of a few others at the time of discovery. Soils in some areas are so corrosive that even the GLO pipe had rusted to flakes of dust. An unusual case where the bottles were a longer lived monument than iron pipe.

- jlw

Have recovered under wagon spindles, called for "stone coal", turned out to be about 3/4 minus in size, never glass.
jud

The ones I have found looked like they were "tossed" in the hole, usually fairly large shards. That being said, I've seen 'em where they musta run them through a grinder. Where you headed to?

-JD-

Headed to Dillingham. Airport has clearcut most of the area for aviation safety. Original field notes state: "Deposit a broken brown glass bottle at base of the monument." Monument is an iron post probably filled with concrete and in nowhere to be found. Soil is composed of silt and sand, badically tundra.

Actually, my party chief just pulled an NGS sheet of a horizontal control point set in 1858 near Sarasota. Monument was a granite rock with 3 bottles buried around it. would be neat to find but hasn't been found since 1940...

Airport R.O.W. mon or...?

I know the CL monuments at most of the runways around the state get wiped out pretty quickly, what with snow removal etc. If it's a BLM monument then you should be able to find a few more. I know when BLM goes out to monument a village, they leave a lot of iron/brass behind!! Good luck!

-JD-

There must have been some unwritten requirement around here that bottles be placed over and around rods and pipes because it was not in the books or any of the descriptions.

When I am digging for and searching around for a monument is among the few times I use leather gloves.

The boundary between Texas and Louisianan was marked with stone mounds at every mile marker with a descriptive parchment note in a bottle hidden in the mound. I've seen two of those on site. One was intact with note inside and the other was shattered and the note long gone. The one survivor was wiped out by a pulpwood truck before any historical preservation people showed up.

Broken Bottles

We, with BLM in the 1950's and 1960's, would break the bottle by hitting the IP with it. So the
broken glass was in the bottom of the hole surrounded the IP. Wear gloves when searching.
Jerry

Broken Bottles

The Tsarist Russian Topographic Brigades (in the late 1800's) set thousands of marks that way. 99.999% have been lost because they were monumented above ground with wood scantling, and that was scavenged for fire wood.

All gone ... nothing found.

Stupid method of monumenting.

Broken Bottles

> scantling

I had to look that one up:

1. a timber of relatively slight width and thickness, as a stud or rafter in a house frame.
2. such timbers collectively.
3. the width and thickness of a timber.
4. the dimensions of a building stone.
5. Nautical.
a. a dressed timber or rolled metal member used as a framing member in a vessel.
b. the dimension, in cross section, of a framing member.

Thanks for the info everyone. I'm surprised nobody mentioned to bring my Glass Detector! I left the door wide open too!

On a more serious note, would the glass shards settle further down over a 60 year period? Would they slowly wash away in the "silt and sand"?

I have set about 20 or 30 AGC (Arkansas Geological Commission) monuments, with glass under them.

We picked up bottles, off the side of the road. Usually, one had to be green. And, after digging the hole, with a PHD (Post Hole Digger), and setting a nail, or rebar in the bottom of the hole, (using plumb bobs, and offset references) we then threw the WHOLE bottles in the hole. And, then used the PHD to smash them futher. Then, we set the AGC monument, over the glass. The idea was we did not want to carry BROKEN glass, to the job site. I have never had occasion to recover any though. But, I suspect others did not want to carry BROKEN glass either. So, it was whole, until it reached the "Point of use".

Just ramblin down memory lane, here.

N

scantling

Includes wooden materials used for framing. Surprised Jim Frame didn't know that.

It's good to hear that you were able to employ a PhD to actually dig holes. Most the ones I ever met could talk all night about such tasks, but seldom have I seem them doing it.

Anyway, can anyone tell me the purpose of burying glass with the monument? I have heard of this practice, but never knew (or forgot if I did) why it was done.

> Anyway, can anyone tell me the purpose of burying glass with the monument? I have heard of this practice, but never knew (or forgot if I did) why it was done.

Wood will eventually rot away, iron will eventually rust into oblivion, but glass, the theory goes, will lie there forever; well at least until the Cat has an opportunity to scratch at it.

Thanks Brian.

I assumed it was that wood, iron, or stone may be in short supply, but wherever there's a couple of surveyors you can always find a bottle 😀

It is additional evidence, should the monument get eradicated...

I forgot to provide an update to this post. I didnt find the memorial, but I did find this

At another corner I found the original Brass Cap used as a memorial. Pretty cool stuff. I will be filing a Record of Survey with all my findings.