In addition to a Magnetic Locator, shovel, pick, cloth tape, machete etc. I use my nose to find old markers. I thought it was the smell of the markers that I picked up, but now I realize it is the lingering essence of the old goat that set it. I wonder what surveyors in the future will think when they find mine.
My I-man, Sly, has a different technique. When we're looking for a tough one, he says a prayer and God leads him to it. He is very good at it, Sly I mean.
"Just be the monument, be the monument, be the monument. You're not being the monument Danny. "
Use the Force Luke!
> lingering essence of the old goat
Be careful, it might be an old goat stake....;-)
Radar
This is one of the funny things about our Profession. I can recall being on one project trying to discern the location of stone bonds set in the early 1800's...
At the site, after reading the deeds, searching and looking at the land trying to figure out what they were trying to accomplish i did walk to a point, kick around, and found three stones, one for the corner and two lying on their sides pointing the direction of the lines... just like in the old surveying books, like Mulford's...
This is not to be confused with looking and digging for hours and then wandering into the bushes to punp the bilge and pissing on the marker.
Been there, done that!
Also spent days, gave up, computed the position, and then found the monument while digging the hole for the new one!
🙂
Loyal
We did that recently.
Searched and searched around a barbed wire fence for a 1/2 pipe. We didn't just sound for it with the Schoenstedt, we also dug all around looking (figuring it would be masked by the mag signal from the fence).
Come back a couple of weeks later armed with coordinates to set the monument. We removed a t-post from the fence and the shovel clinks right on the stinkin' pipe. So we took the cap we were going to put on the 3/4 rebar we brought and with a little encouragement it went on the pipe. The pipe is right on the section line but off a little in chainage but pretty good for 40 years ago when they set it. We accepted it in place.
Several years ago was following an early 50's survey with iron pipes set. Found a few and calced for others. Found a few more with the locator. Angles and distances were a bit poor. So I had a 3 foot or so area to search for one. All over with the Schonstedt and not a bit of a buzz. Set a temp 4p nail at calc location then went at it with a shovel. Hit the pipe just a hair under the duff. Checked again with the Schonstedt. Sure enough, I had heard of this. Old pipe gives no signal. Rap it with a shovel or hammer and instantly it turns on. Sometimes, just because the pipe don't sing doesn't mean it's not there.
"My I-man, Sly, has a different technique. When we're looking for a tough one, he says a prayer and God leads him to it. He is very good at it, Sly I mean."
That's nothing to scoff at. Spilling a bowl of runes and chicken bones is a time honored skill few posess. 😉
I knew a surveyor way back that said if he took enough orange sunshine he'd be able to see the old surveyor actually setting the monument therefore helping in his finding of it.
I used to follow this U.S. Deputy Surveyor in Northern Nevada doing dependent resurveys...Garside... endless miles of sagebrush and Garside's piles of stone from the 1880's ... come to find he eventually moved to Juneau, Alaska and surveyed the Juneau townsite...The first U.S. Survey in Alaska 0001... a couple weeks ago I walked by his house there... the past meets the future... a weird but cool connect...
he ended up getting sick in 1906 and boarded a steam ship to Seattle for medical treatment but died on board before making it there....
G.W. Garside
Years ago (mid 1980s) I retraced part of a George W. Garside (actually Garside & Preble) partial completion survey in Northern Nevada (circa early-mid 1880s). I found most all (maybe all, I don't remember) of Garside's corners, including the ¼ Corner below. I didn't normally take pictures of everything in those days, but this really stood out. I had seen a lot of stone ¼ corners, but never one marked like this one (as were the “Garside” ¼ corners recovered).
Loyal
This is not to be confused with looking and digging for hours and then wandering into the bushes to punp the bilge and pissing on the marker
Now that made me laugh - That is spot on.
Any surveyor that hasn't done that either has had a blessed life, gave up and put in their own mark or denying the truth.
I can remember in days before metal detectors of digging a hole large enough to bury a beast in then scratching my head and rechecking measurments etc and then finally finding the wretched thing on the rim of the crater I just dug and just at or slightly below ground level.
I've come to be suspicious of lone bushes (bit if scrub her in Oz) out in the sticks that I have found to hide the old corner mark.
Time and time again it'd proved well worth taking a closeup look in amongst the tangle which can sometimes be a bit prickly.
Do you blokes know what South African Box Thorn is? I thought pommy Hawthorn was bad until I met this beast.
And I'll concur with Sly's way also.
I worked with a bloke once and we did that right in the middle of the street where we were trying to find a mark in the bitumen. We looked down and we were standing on it.
I've found them on the side of the hole too. So often we routinely check around the sides especially when digging in a paved road.
Sometimes the mag field seems to be off-center from the marker.
