Earlier I focused on how insane it would be to attempt to redraw everything in the PLSS based on a single perfect point, wherever that might be. I suppose before that can be attempted there would be a need to settle every last border of the US and the individual States first. Down to less than the Singapore range of acceptable error.
Maybe Denver would end up back in Kansas where it started out.
One area that the Singapore model does work is in modern subdivisions - particularly in urban areas. That is a function of local control over development. When the PLSS and Grant boundaries were being established in the Western states, it was a matter of expediency to patent the public lands into private hands. The revenue derived by the federal government obviated the need for federal income taxes. Military scrip stood in the stead of veteran's benefits. Homestead entries provided for settlement and facilitated the payment of property taxes to fund local agencies.
Studying (and understanding) history is paramount to understanding those whose footsteps we follow.
Nope. Won't work in modern subdivisions either. That's because the outer boundaries are based on faulty data to begin with (according to FrancisH) because it all goes back to work not meeting the Singapore standards. Since every section and township is in the wrong place everything done within a so-called specific section is already erroneous and unfit for perpetuation (per our buddy from Singapore).
Faulty data by any other name would smell as sweet.
That is, by understanding what those exterior boundaries are really comprised of.
Bit like lighting candles for the blind. I'm working on a big project right now involving GLO sections laid out in 1911-1912. All of our land base mapping (tax maps) are based off of protracted township values, or in other words 'Singapore' mathematically perfect township breakdowns. Of course the section corners I've tied in this week need to be moved about 90' or so on average because those 'incompetent' 1911 surveyors couldn't get it right. Suppose I'll go out tomorrow and start digging them all up and move them to where they 'belong' and to Hades with all the subdivisions and homes built off of those wretched 'wrong' positions.
Apologies in advance to innocent bystanders but this thread is in grave danger of being completely deleted. I've already deleted a few posts, but I'm not gonna sit here all night and cherry pick. I'll just delete the whole thing at some point.
I've been wondering about the veracity of FrancisH. His prior posts seemed innocuous, but this appeared to veer off the tracks ...
Wendell, post: 397178, member: 1 wrote: Apologies in advance to innocent bystanders but this thread is in grave danger of being completely deleted. I've already deleted a few posts, but I'm not gonna sit here all night and cherry pick. I'll just delete the whole thing at some point.
Light it up
The place this post has landed is exactly what is happening on real surveys every day.
I see several surveyors, technicians and rookies that do what FrancisH is saying every year.
I have had to redo the work of some of my previous helpers and associates that stake the deed and ignore the monument.
If anything, this post is bringing this real life horror out in the open.
Have said it before and will say it again "many out there are sitting on the fence about what to do in the real world when they go out to survey something and find it so out of whack, they really want to pull all stakes and fix a century old mess".
Well, the mess is what it is and it is those monuments that control where boundaries are strung across the land today.
Since 1967 I have had the opportunity to follow just about every messed up surveying.
Owners measuring their property off more than called as chainmen for a surveyor, sometimes to even short themselves and sometimes to short others.
People moving newly set monuments as much as several hundred feed to their advantage and doze out evidence and build new fences practically overnight.
Surveyors using aerial photos to survey land.
Non licensed surveyors using a dead mans seal.
Surveyors taking other surveyors caps off and replacing with their own.
Surveyors setting monuments at fence corners and ignoring valid monuments mentioned in record deeds as much as 70ft away and in clear view.
Noting the recording information and never reading any of the descriptions to identify the correct monument and instead using the goat stake many feet away.
Having to defend witness trees and original monuments mentioned in all adjoining deeds against other surveyors who are being paid to say that it could not exist that way.
This list of errors could go on longer.
It simply shows that not everyone cares enough about anyone's interest except their own.
I am just glad that I have met more that would gladly give anyone the help they need to get thru the day.
Many great people out there that would rather suffer themselves than bring any harm to another sole.
I do wish FrancisH any bad, I simply do not agree with him. It may be fine for Singapore as every square centimeter of land is probably worth more than much of the land around NETexas and they have had much more time to get it right.
Imagine the ShoGun that would lop off the arm of whoever measured wrong.
That would tend to bring out the best measurement possible every time.
I found the same apparent similar practice in other places, simply put, in areas that the workers were adept in staying alive against nature, savages and others that wanted what they had and were willing to take it from them, were perhaps less adapt and may have had less time for surveying.
There were times that people were quite pleased with the terms from here to a days ride away is yours and beyond that is mine.
I have people and surveyors that call me most every week that have a problem taking the time to do the work themselves and put together a group of deeds into a connected drawings and would rather want it free from me.
They don't want to pay me money because their old school mate or somebody will do it for them for less.
We all have to eat and all the while keep from being eaten by the fate that we are headed for.
I am simply glad that there is a place like Singapore where no mistakes can be made..........lol.
This was written in 1878, and has been cited with approval by countless other jurisdictions and survey texts as relevant to the application of retracement principles in the United States.
A lot of you have used the Cooley paper to justify what you are saying. One thing seems to escape you with regards to the said paper.
Anyone? anyone? anyone?
It was written in 1878. We are now in 2016. It is 138 years after the fact. He was referring to surveys made prior to his time and as he admitted in his essay, was the fact that main reason for the survey errors are due to survey done by "imperfectly trained surveyors". He was referring to a time when the science of survey was still young in the US and land was cheap that an error of losing 5 or 10 acres compared to the 100 acres remaining does not seem so bad. But surveying technology even in the 1950s was mature enough to avoid the blunders of the 1800s.
The problem with US surveyors is you are using a doctrine that was referring to the time when surveying was in a "primitive" stage for lack of a better word. Surveyors did survey with minimal supervision from higher ups. This is no longer the case for today. You use whatever technology you have today for today's survey.
In the Cooley essay, he mentions that
There are two senses in which the word extinct may be used in this connection: One, the sense of physical disappearance; the other, the sense of loss of all reliable evidence. If the statute speaks of extinct corners in the former sense, it is plain that a serious mistake was made in supposing that surveyors could be clothed with authority to establish new corners by an arbitrary rule in such cases.
So if a corner is physically missing then a surveyor cannot arbitrarily on his own establish the missing corner.
But Cooley goes on to mention the 2nd type of disappearance:
But if by extinct corner is meant one in respect to the actual location of which all reliable evidence is lost, then the following remarks are pertinent:
1. There would undoubtedly be a presumption in such a case that the corner was correctly fixed by the government surveyor where the field notes indicated it to be.
If a corner is not where it is supposed to be located, the present day surveyor has the duty to relocate it based on the deed description of the original survey. You cannot say that his chain was off by 10 feet compared to today. There is no way to determine the error constant for his chain.
So in short the deed description is a basis to locate any wrong/missing monument.
US surveyors are using an essay from 1870s. It's not even an official SC ruling. Yet, you are hiding behind it for the simple fact - you are afraid to sign off your name on a survey that you were paid to do.
A doctor would operate on a patient even if chances are slim for survival. If surveyor are working as doctors, they would refuse to do a prognosis because another doctor before them already made a prognosis.
Underlined, pretty colors and hyperbole...nice touch. Too bad you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. None what so ever.
(last time I'm looking at this post)
Ok sorry if I am uneducated in this. Firstly I am not a LS but Engineering Surveyor. I only do cadastral stuff maybe 1 time a week if that much. Please make me understand this. We have a diagram for a property (unless it is a subdivision,that diagram is the general plan of said township).
That diagram states a property is loacted in township X being situated on farm Y and was done by surveyor X in 19... and the will be referneced in some way with either angles and distances,cape datum coords or wgs84 coords (rarely other coords systems). Next township over will be similar,maybe 20 years later and the new township boundaries that are common should start and end at same coords,that surveyor should have found thise previous beacons. So that new township fits the next door. It might be off by 20mm or so but it all fits (mostly).
If I then buy a house my title deed refers to said general plan diagram,which defines my property as being X x Y distance. The distance is X and nothing can change that.
How can the deed and diagram differ? I agree to not move beacons, but if the diagram says my boundary is 100,00m long then is that not final? If I find all 4 oroginal set beacons,but the 100m line is measured as 90m from beacon to beacon then the beacons are wrong? Maybe set wrong,maybe moved, maybe not the original beacons. But if lets say I can with 100% confidense say they are the originals(maybe very unique description or age shows or something) then how are the beacons not wrong?
If my deed refers to diagram and diagrams defines my property as that length then thats what it is
Or am I missing a difference is way stuff is done?
Thanks
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I've enjoyed this thread in an odd sort of way, but I understand why one might want to delete it. I've had this sort of conversation with others. It gets to the point (like in politics) where you want to keep arguing, but know that you will never convince the other guy of what you are saying regardless of the strength of your point, or how well you present it. I'm just hoping it doesn't deteriorate any further.
but know that you will never convince the other guy of what you are saying regardless of the strength of your point, or how well you present it.
you can't be convincing to anyone when your initial concept itself is flawed.
Underlined, pretty colors and hyperbole...nice touch. Too bad you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. None what so ever.
but wasn't it you that quoted Cooley?I just looked him up and used another part of his essay to prove my point. why is it that you quote him for your point but say that I have not the slightest idea when I also quote him?
bad logic? or misunderstanding his essay?
