Kent McMillan, post: 440414, member: 3 wrote: I read your posts and thought that they really didn't add very much to the discussion since the point of departure was whether:
- bearing trees,
- a stone mound, and
- a cedar stakewere all artificial monuments.
Bearing trees are, of course, natural monuments if they meet certain criteria of unmistakable identity, but both stone mounds and cedar stakes are typically artificial monuments.
The main point was that a cedar stake that is now just rotten fragments of something that was never mentioned by the original surveyor is no monument at all as far as the boundaries described by the original surveyor are concerned when the monument that he did describe, the stone mound, remains in place in the very good condition shown in my photos.
Kent,
I hate to break this to you, but bearing trees are not monuments, they are accessories to monuments. Yes, they are natural objects, but they are inferior to natural and artificial monuments in the dignity of calls. Once again, their value is as an aid in determining whether a boundary monument is in its original, established position and to reestablish a destroyed corner. Perhaps my training as a geologist altered the way in which I evaluate evidence, but I tend not to cling to notions that certain bits of evidence can never be in error.
The tie from a bearing object must be evaluated like every other measurement. When it is the only evidence for the original position of a corner, I will hold the tie and reestablish the monument. The ties from a bearing object are subject to the same errors and blunders as any other measurement. Bearing objects do not mark a boundary, they are witnesses to the corners that mark the boundary. To borrow a theme you will enjoy, in Clement v. Packer the junior corners do not mark the senior line they witness the senior line. When the senior corners are missing, the junior corners may be used to reestablish the senior line. I would imagine that the junior corners could be used in certain instances to verify the position of the senior line.
I have given presentations for over 13 years on mineral surveys. In every one of my seminars, I have stressed the importance of original accessories in the retracement of mineral surveys.
Gene Kooper, post: 440456, member: 9850 wrote: Kent,
I hate to break this to you, but bearing trees are not monuments, they are accessories to monuments. .
Yes, in the cookbook you have to follow, they may not be called monuments. However, outside of PLSSia, they are natural monuments.
Kent McMillan, post: 440461, member: 3 wrote: Yes, in the cookbook you have to follow, they may not be called monuments. However, outside of PLSSia, they are natural monuments.
Kent, that's bovine excrement and you know it. In PLSS states, the retracement surveyor is expected to know/determine three things about the original surveyor. Those are:
- What was the surveyor supposed to do (hint: this is the manual, circulars, [special] instructions, decisions, etc.);
- What did the surveyor say he did (hint: this is the plat and field notes); and
- What did the retracement surveyor determine that the original surveyor DID (hint: this includes subjective terms such as prior experience with retracing the surveyor, which would include his normal practices such as setting cedar stakes at the corner, but not mentioning that in his field notes, etc.).
Now, we all know that Texas surveyors are at a disadvantage because the Texas GLO wasn't much interested in issuing instructions on how to survey the Texas public lands, but that doesn't make Texas surveys more complex. I am sure that Texas surveyors (esp. those who are both RPLS and LSLS) garner through experience and specialized knowledge an understanding of what a previous Texas surveyor was supposed to do. So, your continued lament about the PLSS having a Cookbook and how its existence makes surveying in PLSS states so easy doesn't hold water. Granted, surveying metes and bounds surveys often requires more time and energy, but that doesn't make them complex either. Except for those Texas surveyors that do all their work via fixed price, I would imagine that Texas surveyors appreciate the fact that Texas surveys take more time and energy than surveying in the PLSS states and, therefore it is more profitable to work in Texas.
The next two criteria are no different in PLSS and non-PLSS states. Field notes are field notes and gathering field evidence and retracing the original survey should be similar. I am CERTAIN that you will disagree with me on this, if for no other reason than I said it. 🙂
BTW...I am amused and quite frankly surprised at your eagerness to "discuss" any survey topic with me. Many, many years ago, you announced on the old forum that you only engaged with other posters that you found to be nominally interesting. Deconstructing the opinions of uninteresting folk was never your cup of tea. However, if this observation is incorrect, I do have a suggestion for keeping your BP in a healthy range. Use the "Ignore" feature. My posts will magically disappear from your view, cleansing the threads you post to free from the clutter of the forum's Intellectual Vagrant. 😉
Cheers, Kent.
Gene Kooper, post: 440516, member: 9850 wrote: Kent, that's bovine excrement and you know it. In PLSS states, the retracement surveyor is expected to know/determine three things about the original surveyor. Those are:
- What was the surveyor supposed to do (hint: this is the manual, circulars, [special] instructions, decisions, etc.);
- What did the surveyor say he did (hint: this is the plat and field notes); and
- What did the retracement surveyor determine that the original surveyor DID (hint: this includes subjective terms such as prior experience with retracing the surveyor, which would include his normal practices such as setting cedar stakes at the corner, but not mentioning that in his field notes, etc.).
Well the real question what what the status of a bearing tree was, i.e. whether it qualified as a natural monument. You resorted to the cookbook to reflexively say "no" without really thinking the matter through.
Bwahahahaha!!
Sheesh, yous need to git outside and do sum surveyin'! 🙂
How did I (and my byproduct) get drawn into this mess?????
Holy Cow, post: 440629, member: 50 wrote: How did I (and my byproduct) get drawn into this mess?????
Older male silverbacks slinging poo rarely take aim. It's more of a "scatter" technique.
Yes, I wondered about that, too. What I posted was merely a tutorial on the efficiency of locating the center of an old rock mound using highly advanced mathematical techniques such as division by 2. All the folks in PLSSia who apparently wish that they were qualified to survey in Texas then appeared on cue. "Cue the Geologist Dude and that Other Bunch!" It turned out to be a discussion of epistemology, but, hey, this is the internet.
About to start a decent sized project on J. Evetts Haley's ranch. In the meantime, just think as Kent as Agent K (played by Tommy Lee Jones) from Men in Black.
After hearing K's eulogy for Agent Zed, Agent J said, "Can you promise me something, if I go first, you'll do better than that at my funeral? Yeah, something like... 'J was a friend. Now there's a big part of me that's gone. Oh, J, all the things I should have said, except I was too old and craggy and surly and just tight. I was too tight.'"
Agent K: "I'll wing something."
Epistemology:
Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas:
- the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification,
- various problems of skepticism,
- the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and
- the criteria for knowledge and justification.
Footnote: The term 'Epistemology' was first used by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854
Don't get me wrong, I have learned a lot about surveying from you. And I thank you for all the advice. But you've earned your welts. I gave up politeness on you a long time ago. Following your example, I believe that in a court of law, better to be right than polite.
I'm pretty sure you remember Haley.
Andy Nold, post: 440639, member: 7 wrote: Following your example, I believe that in a court of law, better to be right than polite.
No, you always want to be polite in court. Addressing the attorney who wants to ask you combative quesions as "Mr. So-and-So" costs nothing and judges like it. A surly answer in court is almost always the wrong note to hit. Save it for the internet where it belongs.
Still learning.
Wow, I seem to have been promoted from Intellectual Vagrant to Geologist Dude.
At least GD sounds better than Rockhead! 🙂
It appears the debate is long settled and had long devolved into something else entirely, but I don't understand why there was any further discussion after establishing the simple truth that the monument called for was the center of the rock mound, not this mysterious rotten cedar stake. I acknowledge the discovery of the cedar stake is of interested and can tell you something about the story of that mound, but not much else.
Weighing in on the [USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER] / [USER=9850]@Gene Kooper[/USER] debate (even against my better judgement since each of those guys are intellectually superior to me.) I would suggest that bearing trees are natural monuments but would agree that the bearings and distances written down could be a source of error. I would also suggest that the cedar post could be an original post that wasn't written down in the notes. A preponderance of the evidence surrounding the existing of the post might give one a high enough percentage of "certainty" that it is part of the original monument albeit uncalled for. Some things that might help you determine that, might be its close proximity to the center of the mound, and evidence as to whether the original surveyor was prone to setting cedar posts which were set to represent the corner position and just not calling them out in his notes. Of course the distances from the original natural bearing trees might give you some weight.
Tom Adams, post: 440823, member: 7285 wrote: Weighing in on the [USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER] / [USER=9850]@Gene Kooper[/USER] debate (even against my better judgement since each of those guys are intellectually superior to me.) I would suggest that bearing trees are natural monuments but would agree that the bearings and distances written down could be a source of error. I would also suggest that the cedar post could be an original post that wasn't written down in the notes. A preponderance of the evidence surrounding the existing of the post might give one a high enough percentage of "certainty" that it is part of the original monument albeit uncalled for. Some things that might help you determine that, might be its close proximity to the center of the mound, and evidence as to whether the original surveyor was prone to setting cedar posts which were set to represent the corner position and just not calling them out in his notes. Of course the distances from the original natural bearing trees might give you some weight.
My view may sound odd at first that I regard bearing trees, bearing rocks and other similar corner accessories as not being natural monuments. To me, they are natural objects, that combined with a bearing and/or distance may be used to validate an existing corner or reset a missing corner. The dignity of calls lists natural monuments before artificial monuments. I think it is wrong to say that the bearing tree(s) and tie(s) should be held over the firmly set corner monument for situations where there is only a minor discrepancy (say within a foot).
For the PLSS states, the original distance to the bearing tree was measured to the nearest link (i.e. +/- 0.33 feet). Hazarding a guess for Texas, I imagine that the same held true. The distance to a bearing tree was measured to the nearest link, so that would give a distance +/- 3.33 inches (assuming a 10 or 20 vara chain with 50 and 100 links respectively). One nicety about mineral surveys is that bearing tree ties were measured to a scribed "X" on the blaze not to the center of the tree (measured to the nearest 0.1 ft.). In my experience there is some slop in ties to bearing trees, but ties to bearing rocks with a chiseled "X" are usually much closer.
We both know that a certain Austin surveyor has nudged other surveyor's monuments that are only 0.09 and 0.14 ft. from a senior line. Calling bearing trees natural monuments can leave some readers with the impression that they are therefore superior to the actual corner monument. It is not a long leap to assume that some would suggest that the corner monument should be nudged to precisely fit the bearing tree tie (even though it was only measured to the nearest link). If there are 3 or more bearing trees and the record ties all dance on a nickel and the corner is sitting somewhere else, it may be prudent to nudge it back into its original position.
While some may think that I am picking on Kent, I am troubled by some of his field methods, such as removal of a rotted wood stake, or carefully rebuilding a stone mound so that it looks like an ancient, undisturbed stone mound, etc. If he didn't tout everything he does as being best practice for Everywhere, USA, I'd most likely ignore his suggestions. Others here are free to ignore my posts and I'm sure some do. No problem with that. 🙂
Gene Kooper, post: 440872, member: 9850 wrote: If he didn't tout everything he does as being best practice for Everywhere, USA, I'd most likely ignore his suggestions. Others here are free to ignore my posts and I'm sure some do. No problem with that. 🙂
My job is to gather as much information as I can; that doesn't mean I have to use all the information I gather.
I tell some people; I will give them all the advice they want, for free. But then they get what they paid for...
Gene Kooper, post: 440872, member: 9850 wrote: My view may sound odd at first that I regard bearing trees, bearing rocks and other similar corner accessories as not being natural monuments. To me, they are natural objects, that combined with a bearing and/or distance may be used to validate an existing corner or reset a missing corner. The dignity of calls lists natural monuments before artificial monuments.
I am only making a small distinction about bearing trees being a natural monument. That is to say that I would hold a bearing tree as a "higher order of dignity" than an artificial accessory monument, as it can't be moved. I remember Dennis Mouland making a point that a monument, per the original notes, was so far past the bottom of a cliff and he rejected the monument at the top of the cliff because the call from the cliff was a call to a natural monument.
I do take your point that the distance from a (growing) tree needs to be taken into consideration as the distance is a measurement that is a lower order of evidence.