sjc1989, post: 436046, member: 6718 wrote: Oh my. I'd give my left one if that were really true. Had a guy measure a 1/2mile from the otro direction a couple of years ago and drive a PK nail 1ft away from the old one I accepted because "it missed the 1884 distance of 40.04 1/2 CH. by more that 1/5000"
I just shook my head. Soooo many things wrong with that statement. Purty sure I still have the pic of my foot between the two nails from a cold January morning a few years ago.
Well, it's impossible to idiot-proof the world, but in this case, considering the mechanics of how the axle will actually get tied in future resurveys, I'd always bet on easiest method. Expecting some survey party to do a meticulous job of locating the center of a leaning axle some measured distance below the top would be a losing bet, particularly given the remote location where that rock mound and axle falls.
Peter Ehlert, post: 436052, member: 60 wrote: [solved]
the axle is a witness to the true corner, the mound
I'd put it differently. I'd say that the axle REPRESENTS the position of the center of the mound. There is no real basis for claiming otherwise and it's a very stable, very permanent marker that I would expect to look very nearly as it does right now a century from now.
Peter Ehlert, post: 436023, member: 60 wrote:
Kent McMillan, post: 436016, member: 3 wrote: Rock mounds were built in different sizes. This one was probably at least 33 inches in diameter. I'm afraid I can't state it more plainly.
Sure you can, Kent. Architects use inches. Surveyors use feet, chains and in Texas, varas.
Kent McMillan, post: 436016, member: 3 wrote: That's a pretty thought, but is contrary to the fact that the top of the axle obviously marks the center of the mound and there is no means to show otherwise.
That would be a complete waste of time in this case, considering that the axle obviously hasn't been disturbed and certainly remains in the position set. As for some hypothesis about where the hub might have been: There is no way to know, so the axle as set is the center of the mound, the machined top representing the reference point instead of some theoretical point somewhere on the cross-section of the axle at some arbitrarily chosen lower level.
No Kent. The real reasons that you erroneously accepted the top of the axle is because the axle is firmly set AND more particularly the top of the axle has a machined dimple that you can annoint the precise corner. The rest of your argument is fluff and pretense to prop up the dimple as marking the corner. That machined dimple represents to you a fixed location that can be repeatedly reoccupied with great precision. To paraphase Mulford, it is better to have some uncertainty with the position of a corner than to be able to precisely and repeatedly set up over the wrong point.
If that axle marked a metes and bounds corner in Colorado (i.e. mineral survey corner), I would be required to upgrade it. Bare axles are substandard monuments. In Colorado, the axle would be removed, a hole drilled to accept a No. 6 rebar and a metal cap with the surveyor's name, PLS number and corner information stamped on it (i.e. Cor. No. and Sur. No.)....oh, and a nice dimple. The fact that you don't see the merit is setting a modern monument to perpetuate a corner in the State of Texas when you are not required to record the survey is stunning to me. Or will you be recording this plat with Travis County?
One of a surveyor's most important field duties is the proper perpetuation of survey corners. Based on your many prior posts describing the time and effort you spend to set durable and recognizable monuments, I am, well, gob smacked at your choice here.
Kent McMillan, post: 436016, member: 3 wrote: No, the practice of that office was to remove a cedar hub and drive a permanent marker to represent the position in which it was found. In this case, the hub had no particular status other than an earlier attempt to reference the center of a large rock mound that was probably built in the 1880s and that most likely was already in disarray in 1950 when the hub would have been placed. So the axle marked the center of the mound as well as the hub did, but more permanently. The rock mound is, of course, the original monument and the vanished hub and present axle merely give its center a location for subsequent surveys.
Yes, the 1965 axle is most likely a perpetuation of the 1950 cedar hub. And yes, it is a more permanent monument and likely a generally accepted practice for rehabilitating a monument in 1965. You conducted your survey in 2017 and in my view should have perpetuated the corner according to current accepted practice. In my opinion, you should have determined that the best available evidence for the corner is the position of the axle as it enters the ground, not some dimple hovering above the ground surface.
Kent McMillan, post: 436016, member: 3 wrote: The most important fact that very few seem to be able to wrap their heads around is the practical one that when a large rock mound is slightly scattered, the uncertainty in where different careful surveyors would independently locate the center of the mound if no permanent mark designating that center were in place is sufficiently large that worrying about the fact that an axle leans that is otherwise solidly set in rock and of a material that will likely be in excellent shape a century from now ignores the entire reason for the exercise in the first place. The point of placing a permanent marker in a rock mound is to provide a permanent reference point.
Exactly one point on the axle performs that function: the machined center of the top.
Oh, we understand Kent. It is you that are hung up with that machined dimple somehow marking the corner. Or, in a reply to Peter in a subsequent post, was the reason more to do with not wanting to haul the equipment from your truck a 1/4 mile uphill in 105?øF heat (both ways)? No, you should have perpetuated the corner with a modern, durable monument set in a drill hole where that old axle goes into the ground. At a minimum, setting a shiny new aluminium cap would let the next surveyor know who perpetuated the stone mound. Plus, if you are still around that surveyor will have the opportunity to see your plat and read what evidence you found for the stone in 2017 along with (by then) the archaic SPCs. 😉
Yes, there is uncertainty in multiple determinations of the center of a scattered stone mound. That is why the 1950 position should have been accepted by the 1965 field crew if the hub was found. You seem to be generally advocating that the most substantial and permanent looking monument should be selected, esp. when it is a machined, dimpled axle. With only 15 years between those two surveys, my bet is that the cedar hub was found in 1965. Not to mention that the scattering of the stone mound would have been less in 1950.
Gene Kooper, post: 436060, member: 9850 wrote: Sure you can, Kent. Architects use inches. Surveyors use feet, chains and in Texas, varas.
I'm sure that you report the sizes of trees and boundary markers in chains in Colorado, but in the Texas the common practice among surveyors has always been to use feet and inches since before the Republic of Texas.
No Kent. The real reasons that you erroneously accepted the top of the axle is because the axle is firmly set AND more particularly the top of the axle has a machined dimple that you can annoint the precise corner.
That's a remarkably dense love of formalism over practicality when the sole purpose of the axle is to give an exactly reproducible reference point. You're getting hung up on offset components of about 0.22 and 0.10 ft. (parallel and perpendicular to line) between the top of the axle and the center of the axle 9.5 inches below the top in the belief that the scatter of rocks shown in the photos has a center that can be more exactly determined. An observant person would conclude from the photos I've posted that your idea is obviously false.
If that axle marked a metes and bounds corner in Colorado (i.e. mineral survey corner), I would be required to upgrade it. Bare axles are substandard monuments. In Colorado, the axle would be removed, a hole drilled to accept a No. 6 rebar and a metal cap with the surveyor's name, PLS number and corner information stamped on it (i.e. Cor. No. and Sur. No.)....oh, and a nice dimple. The fact that you don't see the merit is setting a modern monument to perpetuate a corner in the State of Texas when you are not required to record the survey is stunning to me. Or will you be recording this plat with Travis County?
The monument is the rock mound and is in Texas, not the Rocky Mountains. I don't know why this should be particularly difficult to understand. The axle was set to designate of the center of the mound. In other words, there is no point in replacing the axle as you wish to do.
One of a surveyor's most important field duties is the proper perpetuation of survey corners. Based on your many prior posts describing the time and effort you spend to set durable and recognizable monuments, I am, well, gob smacked at your choice here.
Obviously you haven't ever really understood the situation presented if you're fretting about replacing a stable and permanent mark like the axle which does already perpetuate the position of the corner represented by the center of the rock mound.
Yes, the 1965 axle is most likely a perpetuation of the 1950 cedar hub. And yes, it is a more permanent monument and likely a generally accepted practice for rehabilitating a monument in 1965. You conducted your survey in 2017 and in my view should have perpetuated the corner according to current accepted practice. In my opinion, you should have determined that the best available evidence for the corner is the position of the axle as it enters the ground, not some dimple hovering above the ground surface.
The cedar hub was merely an earlier attempt to mark the center of the mound, but in a way that was neither permanent nor stable. I would expect that a surveyor would have better judgment than to run with a pet theory without evidentiary support as you have. The hub would have been placed by a firm and the axle placed by the same firm as what they considered to be an equivalent representation. Insofar as the public record discloses, neither hub nor axle has been tied by any survey subsequent to the placement of either. What you want to do is to waste time chasing the ghost of where you imagine that a hub could have been while of course destroying the axle that has been in place for 52 years.
Oh, we understand Kent. It is you that are hung up with that machined dimple somehow marking the corner. Or, in a reply to Peter in a subsequent post, was the reason more to do with not wanting to haul the equipment from your truck a 1/4 mile uphill in 105?øF heat (both ways)? No, you should have perpetuated the corner with a modern, durable monument set in a drill hole where that old axle goes into the ground. At a minimum, setting a shiny new aluminium cap would let the next surveyor know who perpetuated the stone mound.
As I previously mentioned, the rock mound and axle will be fully described in the metes and bounds description that will be of record. Removing the axle and replacing it with a rod and cap monument would be removing a monument of superior stabilily and permanence with a somewhat lesser one and, were candor necessary, would be reported as "found 1.25 inch dia. axle (9.5 inches Up) in rock, and after considerable effort removed the same to replace it with a 5/8 in. Iron Rod to which I affixed an aluminum cap to take credit for the vandalism"
Yes, there is uncertainty in multiple determinations of the center of a scattered stone mound. That is why the 1950 position should have been accepted by the 1965 field crew if the hub was found.
We don't know that the hub was found in place and we don't know what the relation of the top of the axle was to any hub. Those are facts. It's a fair assumption that any hub was most likely propped up or wedged among the large rocks of the mound and, since the mound sits on a rock slab, that the tacked top of the hub was at least four inches above the rock slab. So your fantasy about "knowing" where the hub was is just that. while dismissing the fact that the same firm who set the hub also set the axle sixteen years later.
You seem to be generally advocating that the most substantial and permanent looking monument should be selected, esp. when it is a machined, dimpled axle. With only 15 years between those two surveys, my bet is that the cedar hub was found in 1965. Not to mention that the scattering of the stone mound would have been less in 1950.
The axle has been in place for 52 years, is a solid, highly permanent marking. Your "bet" that the cedar hub was found is neither solid nor objective in the way that the axle is.
As for the scattering of the rock mound, as I believe any experienced surveyor would conclude from examining the photos I've posted, the fence construction appears to have been the main disturbing force judging by how the rocks are asymmetrically distributed. The 1950 surveyor's records show that there was a fence already in place along the line in 1950 and from examining that fence I'd say what is there now (with the exception of some newer strands of wire and some steel tee posts that have been added over the years since to replace a percentage of the cedar posts) dates from decades before 1950. The large slab of limestone that appears in the photo may likely have been a cap rock on the mound that was pushed out of the way for fence construction. I've examined hundreds of rock mounds for the purpose of setting markers at their centers and I don't consider that scatter of rocks to be such that a center can be designated with anything resembling certainty. In that scenario, the axle wins and I'm happy to preserve it as found.
I would have located it where it entered the ground, if it was in the budget for an extra shot or two.
[SARCASM]Hopefully the prudent and exactingly-ethical-Kent doesn't emerge at a later date and decide to fire you for gross incompetence.[/SARCASM] 🙂
There is no 'mound' just a bunch of rocks strewn upon the ground. Rock rubble. So various archaeo-cadastral experts have placed pipes etc. as to the center of the debris as defined by whatevers.
What is this argument over whether the top or base at ground of an axle represents the middle of a rock pile?
Just consider the precision of a rock pile and move on.
I would assume that I with today's equipment and a good metes and bounds I could tell based on other corners which point to use. If it is not a metes and bounds description, then who the hell cares?
If I were truly worried about it I would measure to the top and base at ground and use a meaned position, That way whichever is right, I am at least half right.
Paul in PA
R.J. Schneider, post: 436066, member: 409 wrote: I would have located it where it entered the ground, if it was in the budget for an extra shot or two.
[SARCASM]Hopefully the prudent and exactingly-ethical-Kent doesn't emerge at a later date and decide to fire you for gross incompetence.[/SARCASM] 🙂
[SARCASM]First he loses his hat, now this, I'm thinking the two are connected.[/SARCASM]
R.J. Schneider, post: 436066, member: 409 wrote: I would have located it where it entered the ground, if it was in the budget for an extra shot or two.
[SARCASM]Hopefully the prudent and exactingly-ethical-Kent doesn't emerge at a later date and decide to fire you for gross incompetence.[/SARCASM] 🙂
[SARCASM]Well, the only thing I can think of is that this project was bid at a fixed price.[/SARCASM]
Gene Kooper, post: 436081, member: 9850 wrote: [SARCASM]Well, the only thing I can think of is that this project was bid at a fixed price.[/SARCASM]
[SARCASM]First he loses his hat, then he holds a leaning axle without proper professional identification attached thereto, one can only reasonably conclude is next he starts taking on fixed price contracts :-([/SARCASM]
FL/GA PLS., post: 435941, member: 379 wrote: Regardless of the circumstances I would never set anything on a non vertical angle. 😎
Future Surveyors will utilize the base of the monument shown in your pic as the corner location.
Not if his recorded Record of Survey map states otherwise...
R.J. Schneider, post: 436066, member: 409 wrote: I would have located it where it entered the ground, if it was in the budget for an extra shot or two.
Hopefully the prudent and exactingly-ethical-Kent doesn't emerge at a later date and decide to fire you for gross incompetence.[/SARCASM]
I would try very hard not to hire people with such poor thinking ability that they are unable to determine whether a length of axle solidly driven into a fissure in rock is disturbed or not, so there should be no such person to fire.
Locating some point on some lower part of the cross-section of a leaning marker is for those cases where the marker obviously wasn't set in the out-of-plumb orientation found or where the upper portion of the marker is above a bend in the marker resulting from mechanical damage with the section below the bend remaining plumb.
Paul in PA, post: 436075, member: 236 wrote: What is this argument over whether the top or base at ground of an axle represents the middle of a rock pile? Just consider the precision of a rock pile and move on.
That is exactly the point. It's insane to be fretting about whether the center of a rock mound is at the top of 52-year-old axle very firmly set in rock to mark the center and easy to locate or at some point 0 ft. to 0.24 ft. distant just because the surveyor wants to speculate about where the center might have been marked had the axle not been set.
I would assume that I with today's equipment and a good metes and bounds I could tell based on other corners which point to use. If it is not a metes and bounds description, then who the hell cares?
Right again.
"Thence to the Center of the remains of an old Rock Mound found (more than 20 Large to Medium-sized Rocks, somewhat scattered, within a diameter of about 36 inches, with others lying beyond that distance), marked by the Center of the top of a 1-1/4-in. dia. Steel Axle No. 205 found (9-1/2 inches Up, leaning in a Northwesterly direction, but firmly set in a rock outcrop, plainly undisturbed) taken to be the identical Axle placed in 1965 by O.L. Tymer, Surveyor to perpetuate the center of said Mound as found then, the Center of the top of Axle No. 205 being the exact Reference Point."
Paul in PA, post: 436075, member: 236 wrote: What is this argument over whether the top or base at ground of an axle represents the middle of a rock pile?
I believe this argument is about something much more important than a rock mound and an axle
Kent McMillan, post: 436053, member: 3 wrote: Well, it's impossible to idiot-proof the world, but in this case, considering the mechanics of how the axle will actually get tied in future resurveys, I'd always bet on easiest method. Expecting some survey party to do a meticulous job of locating the center of a leaning axle some measured distance below the top would be a losing bet, particularly given the remote location where that rock mound and axle falls.
In essence you are really just expanding the definition of forward guidance .. ??
James Fleming, post: 436088, member: 136 wrote: I believe this argument is about something much more important than a rock mound and an axle
No need to go anatomical. The two or three points of view represented amount to civilized practicality vs. different species of formalism, i.e. doing something that is efficient and that will work well over the long term vs. doing something for no particularly good reason, but just because that's the way you've done it before in some completely different situation.
R.J. Schneider, post: 436095, member: 409 wrote: In essence you are really just expanding the definition of forward guidance .. ??
No, it's making decisions based upon the Real World and what will work and be practical. If the object is to be able to reproduce the designated center of the rock mound with an uncertainty on the order of +/- 1mm, then designating the physical point representing that center as "the center of the circular cross-section of a 1-1/4 in. dia. Axle taken at a level 9-1/2 inches below the top of the Axle, measured in an axial direction" won't get you there since the center moves horizontally by about 8mm per inch below the top. The center of the top of the Axle will.
Likewise, the process of locating the center of the top is as simple as locating a prism or rover pole with point in the machined center of the top whereas there are lots of moving parts in getting an exact location of the center of the axle at some measured level below that top.
James Fleming, post: 436088, member: 136 wrote: I believe this argument is about something much more important than a rock mound and an axle
Is it a "rock mound and an axle" waving contest?
I would lose. I keep pepper and tweezers handy.
Step one: sprinkle some pepper on the axle, then when it sneezes, quick grab it with the tweezers.
