Modern metes and bounds description

Please........ you are killing me now.......:-P

SWMBO has dimples !

TNAI

> ......thence north 24 degrees 17 minutes 21 seconds east to a dimple set on an aluminum cap attached to the top of a 3/4" diameter by 36" long iron bar with said dimple being 0.011 feet south 48 degrees 11 minutes 11 seconds from the center of said cap......

I wonder if he used a 30 second gun and a bent range pole?

Actually, here are two sample monument descriptions from a modern metes and bounds description:

"Standard Rod and Cap" denotes a Punchmark on a 2 in. Aluminum Cap stamped "KENT MCMILLAN, SURVEYOR, RPLS, 4341" and numbered as noted, affixed to a 5/8 in. Iron Rod. “Standard Spike and Washer” denotes a Punchmark on a 3/8 in. Steel Spike with a 2 in. Aluminum Washer stamped "KENT MCMILLAN, SURVEYOR, RPLS, 4341" and numbered as noted.

Then, in the body of the description, the monument is just described by the shorthand of "Standard Rod and Cap" with a number keyed to the coordinate list. For example:

THENCE N46°06’36”W along the Northwest line of the John W. Fogg Survey No. 76,

· at approximately 370 vrs. crossing a dry branch running Southeast (call from field notes of Fogg Survey: 500 vrs.),
· at 2516.7 ft. passing the center of the 14 in. prong of a double Live Oak found 3.6 ft. Southwest of line with a horizontal hack scar 8-1/2 in. long, 34 in. above ground, visible on the bark of its West face, taken to be a 19th century surveyor’s mark,

in all for a total distance of 4418.03 ft. (= 1590.490 vrs.; Calls from patent: N45°W, 1582 vrs.) to a Standard Rod and Cap No.187 (built a Rock Mound around it) set by the South edge of a Pasture Road to mark the North corner of the Fogg Survey and the East corner of the Benjamin F. Smith Survey No. 77, both as located by Bartlett Sims in April of 1847, noting that from said corner:

There isn't any need to mention any eccentricity of the punchmark if the rod is stable. If the rod isn't stable, the geodetic coordinates will be more useful, anyway.

I understand you'd be more concerned about this precision thing if you had opposeable thumbs...

give that pin a kick for me. (I bet it's a spinner anyway.)

"14 in. prong"
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.
.
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Well, I'm impressed. Must be a member of the Approximator's Anatomical Division of the American Exaggerator's Society. No feemalz aloud.

You forgot the bearings of the major and minor axises of the error ellipse, not to mention their sizes.

Well, the "dia." in "14 in. prong" is understood in that case. For example, a customary shorthand commonly used in describing a bearing tree would be "12 in. Live Oak". Everyone understands that you don't need to look below knee height. :>

Oh, that's nothing.

When you see an ALTA plat with a call at a township corner for a "3/4 inch rebar with cap marked PS XXXX from which a buried stone bears N21d-13m-44sW a distance of O.34 feet" you know that you have seen the future of surveying.

THAT is funny, Rankin.
It's not easy having hooves.

Don

You left out the grade and mill number of the reinforcing bar.

If you are going to be absolutely precise why would you use any "customary shorthand?"

> If you are going to be absolutely precise why would you use any "customary shorthand?"

Well, metes and bounds descriptions are mainly written for other land surveyors. So there is no need to write "Quercus virginiana" when "Live Oak" is understood. In the future, it may be possible that licenses to survey are given to individuals who think that "14 in. Live Oak" means a bonsai tree 14 inches tall. I don't think so, though. This is a problem in Utah, I take it?

> When you see an ALTA plat with a call at a township corner for a "3/4 inch rebar with cap marked PS XXXX from which a buried stone bears N21d-13m-44sW a distance of O.34 feet" you know that you have seen the future of surveying.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

"future of surveying"???? I beg to differ. It has been here for quite a while and is alive and strong in certain circles. However, there appears to be a growing movement to stomp it out despite the unending efforts of many. Until the PTB and the ones that are too arrogant to learn are gone, we will have to live with and bear this heavy burden that threatens to crush our profession.

[sarcasm]Measurement is King!! Long live the King!!![/sarcasm]

Kent's notes

Never met Mr. McMillan, but I consider him a colleague, if not a friend.

If I were retracing a survey, I would relish having notes as complete as Kent's.

Now if I was on Kent's crew, at 5 PM on a hot West Texas day 150 miles from the house I bet it would drive me nuts!

Control point and velocity updates.

Kent's notes

> Never met Mr. McMillan, but I consider him a colleague, if not a friend.
>
> If I were retracing a survey, I would relish having notes as complete as Kent's.
>
> Now if I was on Kent's crew, at 5 PM on a hot West Texas day 150 miles from the house I bet it would drive me nuts!

Well, thank you, paden. Land surveying practices are a work in progress. In Central Texas, there was one pre-eminent surveyor, a fellow named O.E. Metcalfe, who left a record that is well above average and who did a generally excellent job of researching and marking the boundaries he surveyed. As a result, even decades later, properties that he surveyed tend to be relatively easy to resurvey. Boundary confusions tend to be few.

What I've done is simply to ask myself what O.E. Metcalfe would have done with the modern tools we now have available to leave a record that accomplishes fifty years from now what his did.

Now, as for being 150 miles from the house at 5 PM, that is one of the advantages of working solo. I don't have to hear about it being past beer-thirty. :>

I guess that with the sun's poles reversing pretty soon we will find the punch marks to be on the other side of the centerline marks on this cap?

I can understand the velocity of crustal movement accounts for the various punch marks moving from the original coordinate location! LOL