It's kinda interesting how some PLSS corners get "out". In this case everything was measuring about 10 feet short and typically the north-south lines were running very close to north but they weren't "lining up" with each other north and south about SE-SW 88.5 degrees. Since that's how the lines were to be run it makes sense. Then I lose the trail, so I go to the east from the NE of Sec 9 (the one I was looking for) to the NE of Sec10 and find a scatted stone, probably all from one broken stone but about 100' west of where I expected to see it if I line up the corners to the south so I gather them all up:
I spent 1/2 an hour looking at the broken stone, one chip 5"x4"x2" about 20 feet from the corner was marked with 4 notches:
So then to the west and 100 feet west of where I'd been looking there was this original at the NE of Sec 9:
then the NE of Sec 8:
which led me to the n1/4 of Sec 7:
Unlike to the south in the township, these stones all lined up east and west, but they don't line up to the stones to the south, contrary to how the notes read, I'm close to positive there was more than one crew running lines and they weren't doing it the way they were supposed to..........;-)
> Unlike to the south in the township, these stones all lined up east and west, but they don't line up to the stones to the south, contrary to how the notes read, I'm close to positive there was more than one crew running lines and they weren't doing it the way they were supposed to.
Do you find that the same Deputy Surveyors consistently followed similar, if non-standard, methods in different townships?
> Unlike to the south in the township, these stones all lined up east and west, but they don't line up to the stones to the south, contrary to how the notes read, I'm close to positive there was more than one crew running lines and they weren't doing it the way they were supposed to..........;-)
It does seem logical.B-)
It's pretty random with each surveyor. Clearly sometimes there are crews running from the north and south, meeting in the middle.
That can result in big kinks in the middle of the township.
There is a flat bench along the north 1-1/2 miles of this township and maybe the mile south of the north line was run east-west, but I'm really guessing, so it's often more topo reasons than the surveyor always doing the same thing. There is a pretty good kink (about 1 to 2 degress NW) from the east and west 1/4 stones in sections 8-9-10 to the corners on the north lines of those sections.
The north south lines are running close to true in the rest of the township, at least the parts I've been in.
I need a time machine then I could say for sure;-)
> There is a flat bench along the north 1-1/2 miles of this township and maybe the mile south of the north line was run east-west, but I'm really guessing, so it's often more topo reasons than the surveyor always doing the same thing.
That would make perfect sense that the Deputy would have figured out the easiest way to survey around the topography, which I assume meant "the easiest way to get section corners marked without necessarily closing the sections".
Does that also mean that many 1/4 corners appear to have been only stubbed in?
Yes, sometimes if there was a river, they ran each side of it with different crews, or a big difficult ridge, this township is broken, but not hardly a big deal to the old guys who did this work.
I'm finding almost all the corners, it's the one you don't find that is so time consuming.
Many of them show little history, I'm not sure they have been looked for, big ranches and no development, fences on ridges for ease of maintenance, the section lines are mostly shown as dashed lines on the quad (usually a bad sign). But he was there setting corners even if he didn't make hardly any topo calls and those are not very accurate 🙁
> But he was there setting corners even if he didn't make hardly any topo calls and those are not very accurate
Do you suppose that the sparse topo calls are to make it more difficult for some GLO examiner to identify which lines weren't fully run?
I don't think so, he was not one of the "bad" ones.
Many of the really broken lines will have one call like 38 chains cross ravine, he could have repeated it 20 times along that line.
It's pretty typical, the annoying thing was I spent a few hours looking for the center township corner and I was putting a lot of weight on a close topo call which is at least 2 chains "off", makes it difficult to find when you are 150' away.
He did the entire township in 6 days in 1882, so they weren't waiting around.
I had one north of there that was done Dec 22-24: three days, in scattered timber, the three shortest days of the year; needless to say there has been issues finding corners in that one.
Lucky you. You get topo calls that might mean something. Calling out a "creek, 3 links wide" that may have moved 50 feet or more in any direction since then doesn't help me much. Or, citing a crossing of a trail that ceased to be used within two years following the original survey and has been tilled for cropland for nearly 150 years, rarely helps. I've heard that in some places there were trees close to section corners that might have continued to exist for many years. Must be somewhere else. When 19 out of 20 section corners were a stake and pits that ceased to exist with creation of the county roads and the roads are generally centered on the section line, finding the rare original one out of 20 stone monuments is a wondrous occasion. I am scheduling a backhoe to search for one of those in a county road intersection within the next few weeks. The other seven corners of that section were all stake and pits.
> I don't think so, he was not one of the "bad" ones.
I'm wondering when transits with stadia hairs were first in common use. I would have thought sometime in the 1880's. On the other hand, if the land was open and rolling, maybe the short cut was using a wire much longer than two poles to run out distances.
Edit: This 1889 source suggests that stadia methods were used as early as 1875,
Maybe, but I don't think so...
> Maybe, but I don't think so...
But what would be another explanation for not noting passing calls on a line actually run with a two-pole chain?
I wonder if the few passing calls that were noted provide a clue. If stadia methods were used, the stations should have been on ridges and high points, among others, and you'd expect mention of them at least. If a 2 or 2.5 chain length of tempered steel wire (like hoop skirt wire) was used, you'd expect the few passing calls on a line to fall near some even multiple of the basic length.
Nah, they just didn't take many topo calls, I've got one township not far from this one with no calls.
I would say 1 to 2 per mile
> Nah, they just didn't take many topo calls, I've got one township not far from this one with no calls.
>
> I would say 1 to 2 per mile
Interesting. What are the common elements that made some topo feature worth mentioning? Near an even chainage station or something else?
> I spent 1/2 an hour looking at the broken stone, one chip 5"x4"x2" about 20 feet from the corner was marked with 4 notches:
Are the notches visible in the picture? I've been looking and just don't see them.
Nice find. I love it when you find the key that gets you on the right solution.
They are faint, the dark spot near the hammer head is the middle one with two faint notches above and two below .
they were more visible in the field.
It's very random, I pay most attention to calls close to the monument with links in the measurement. When they get very far from the corner most calls are even chains and don't mean all that much. And of course the ravines and streams are more precise than tops.
> It's very random, I pay most attention to calls close to the monument with links in the measurement. When they get very far from the corner most calls are even chains and don't mean all that much. And of course the ravines and streams are more precise than tops.
If the calls are even chains, that suggests that they maybe weren't using a 2-pole chain in the first place, doesn't it?
I've seen this movie a bunch. All the old guys around here were setting 3' posts circa 1813-1815.
I know they are difficult to pick out:
but if you look closely................
This is a 5 south 2 east stone; the corner common to 2-3-10-11, to that at one time was the top of the stone and the narrow face facing south, the wide face facing east with 2 notches which I couldn't find.
