Had a tricky lot to survey yesterday. Only a little over an acre but the description lacked 30 feet from closing. I assumed a reversed call but even then it was 18 feet off. Found an adjoining 1925 plat that called for a common corner to be a rock.
The current description was written in 1955 and called for an ??iron? for this particular corner and I found another plat from 1984 that called for an open top pipe.
?ÿI arrive at the corner and see the open top pipe sticking up several inches with old blue and orange flagging remnants.
I??m curious so I dig a little and find the rock pretty quickly.
So here I??m looking at an almost 100 year old monument supplanted by one that is now 65 years old.
I??ve seen this scenario several times. Wether it??s a property owner trying to witness the rock with something more visible or a surveyor trying to mark the corner with something that his locator can find next time, I can??t say for sure.
But I do see it change in the record.
I was lucky with the survey. Found all of the pins and they made sense with ?ÿthe faulty description.
My descriptor for the common corner...3/4 pipe @ rock.
A wise old surveyor here on the board once said, "You don't have to be a great surveyor if you can find all the corners". 😉
A job well done.
Completed a job this week where we found all the corners......................................right where I had set them seven years ago.?ÿ OK.?ÿ Within a hundredth or two.?ÿ Looked golden to me. 🙂 ?ÿ
Finding the corner in a description is the best rewarding experience. Also knowing that in finding it you can never be wrong even if it does not match your calculations precisely.
I think the "open top pipe" was the best description allowing found evidence to be recognized. That and the fact that other surveyors had left their flagging.
Most times I wish that in making a description surveyors would be as careful as in their measurements. A thorough description will certainly aid in the conclusions of future surveys.?ÿ?ÿ
What I strongly dislike is when a bar or pipe is placed next to the stone but the new measurement is to that bar or pipe.?ÿ Wrong.?ÿ The stone is still the corner.?ÿ The iron matter needs to be set low enough that the stone will be discovered and then the bar.?ÿ We have set up to six bracing bars around a stone to make it more stable.?ÿ Anyone who shoots any one of them is a du*****.
We have had numerous occasions where the stone was so deep we could set a valid iron monument directly above it then report what we had done on the corner report for the whole world to see.
Found stone, set Iron pipe at the stone's location, buried stone alongside, I will normally lay the stone flat so no one thinks it's still at the monument, it then is an accessory.?ÿ
Of course there are those skinny rebar alongside a nice set stone, I consider them magnetic finders and report them as such, they are the accessory.
Pipe with water cap set in 1937 (stamped on it).?ÿ Quarter Section Corner.
Next to an old very decayed post, probably the original.?ÿ This is a weird one, the PLSS was extended by 19th century private surveyors into a Rancho Grant so it is technically not a PLSS corner.?ÿ Anyway, everyone is using the pipe and why not??ÿ It's all made up by men anyway.?ÿ The pipe is more definite and it's within a half a link or so of the "true corner." Mr. 1937 Civil Engineer (he was there because of a County Road Survey) was not splitting hairs.
And when that pipe was set those men would have laughed if you told them it was off by half a foot.
Years ago I had a description call for a rock, but the adjoiner called for a clump of trees. So as I traipse through the swamp I come to a rock sticking up 3' with a clump of 1"-1 1/2" trees growing out of the top. Held it without hesitation and revised description accordingly.
Paul in PA
Of course there are those skinny rebar alongside a nice set stone, I consider them magnetic finders and report them as such, they are the accessory.
It can be confusing if there isn't a clear record.
Corner of family land.?ÿ I measure from ties and other irons on the plat of the surveyor who set the iron to the chalk arrow where stone meets post. The corner record isn't specific on what point was intended and the tie to the right wasn't seen so I depended on more distant irons...
But an adjoining plat's distances measure to match capped iron.
?ÿ
It can be confusing if there isn't a clear record.
I probably wasn't clear in my post made as a meeting was starting.?ÿ My GPS measurements between other points on his plat match very well but the chalk arrow matches his plat a lot better than the capped iron.?ÿ Another surveyor seems to have just used the iron.?ÿ That discrepancy could have been avoided if his corner record had said that the iron was an accessory.
Found stone, set Iron pipe at the stone's location, buried stone alongside, I will normally lay the stone flat so no one thinks it's still at the monument, it then is an accessory.?ÿ
Of course there are those skinny rebar alongside a nice set stone, I consider them magnetic finders and report them as such, they are the accessory.
I have a young guy that??s been with me a couple years and I was talking to him about the corner while I was digging for the rock. When I found it, I explained to him the possibilities of why the pipe was placed next to it. He said that if the previous surveyor wanted to put a pin there, he should have moved the rock and put the pin where the rock was.?ÿ
I like how his brain is working.
?ÿ
Depends on the State. Some require you to 'remonument the corner position'. Regardless of where you are, say what you did. Making the next person guess is just poor practice.
Yes.?ÿ That is terrible practice.?ÿ That is why it is so nice to work in a recording state.
Remonumenting could be a significant piece of work in some cases.?ÿ One particular corner that still exists is described in the GLO notes as being an "X" chiseled into the face of a large, detached boulder on a bluff directly above the river.?ÿ That would be a challenging thing to create today, let alone in the days when there was no 911 to call or ambulances or hospitals or doctors but plenty of unhappy natives who were supposed to have already left the immediate area permanently.?ÿ That "X" has done the job for over 150 years.
I found a set stone quarter section corner in a flush mound or collar of stone. It has been there sticking up proudly for 150 years +/-. BLM would take it out, set their post and stamped up cap and bury the stone (they did that at the east 1/4 recently as a matter of fact. Stone is the south 1/4...I don't like to dismantle history like that, nothing wrong with the stone.
That is why I got me a rock drill.
I put long irons thru the hole I've drilled thru the rock corner.
0.02
I found a set stone quarter section corner in a flush mound or collar of stone. It has been there sticking up proudly for 150 years +/-. BLM would take it out, set their post and stamped up cap and bury the stone (they did that at the east 1/4 recently as a matter of fact. Stone is the south 1/4...I don't like to dismantle history like that, nothing wrong with the stone.
The problem is that too many surveyors and landowners won't recognize a stone. It is actually astounding how many surveyors won't even try to look for them. If I had a dollar for everytime a surveyor uses a random rebar instead of the original stone....
Another benefit, in most of the country, of replacing the stone with a substantial pipe is it allows winter surveying. Digging for stones in the snow takes a long time.
I'm not a fan of disturbing an ancient monument.?ÿ I locate the stone bound, sprinkle some magnails around it, then move on.?ÿ I'm not sure that I would appreciate someone drilling into one of my hand-split granite boundary monuments.?ÿ I view this action as a form of land surveyor virtue signaling.?ÿ
If you are concerned that Joe Blow property owner won't recognize a stone corner, set a metal fence post or one of those fiberglass posts that say, "Boundary Corner", on the flat side.
I've been surveying a township with %80 stone coverage, some lost from ditch construction, hay meadows, roads, ect. Found a beautiful set marked stone projecting up a foot above ground. It wasn't like a spent time looking for it, basically I drove my 4 wheeler to a calc position and parked next to it. My search was 10 seconds. On top of the stone was an X that had been scratched into it so I located it, took pictures, measured what was showing looked for accessories of which there is no remaining evidence and moved on. Filed on it with a nice picture on the record.
A couple of years later I'm at the same stone and there is a new cap next to it, marked as the corner, stone still in place, hasn't moved...…..
Ancient stone monuments. My preferred method is to set something metal under it. This is not always possible. A recent one was in such a rocky place, that I found a small hole / scratch @ near TDC. I used this. And, piled more stone around it, to secure it. I also flagged it, and got witness trees. With nails in the witness trees. It's not "totally ideal", but it's better than how I found it.
Nate
