The Ghost of an Opinion from 1904

Needs a dab of flo-pink paint

Sorry Kent, but my old eyes cannot make out the spike and washer in the second photo, only a work boot. Out of curiosity, I'm not sure why you set a minor monument in the mound, which leads to the next question.

If County Surveyor Lee later changed the position of the corner (1914), what value does this mound of stones still have? Same question for someone revisiting it in 1948. Is it an angle point or does the patent call out this mound?

The stupendous sum of $1.00 per acre is in line with what the U.S. GLO collected for Public Lands of similar value. That being $1.25 per acre.

Robert Hill, post: 435147, member: 378 wrote: Needs a dab of flo-pink paint

I'll keep that in mind if I ever actually buy any. White marking paint is about as crazy as I get with paint and that's mostly for asphalt pavement.

Gene Kooper, post: 435148, member: 9850 wrote: Sorry Kent, but my old eyes cannot make out the spike and washer in the second photo, only a work boot.

I'd think that anyone with sharper eyes would be able to see it. I can make it out fairly clearly.

Out of curiosity, I'm not sure why you set a minor monument in the mound ...

An identifiable Spike and Washer with a Punchmark on the Spike serves to fix the location of the mound fairly efficiently. The Mound will be referenced in the metes and bounds description and the identification leaves no doubt as to the reference point that would not be true if it were some unidentified marker.

If County Surveyor Lee later changed the position of the corner (1914), what value does this mound of stones still have?

Naturally, working in the much simpler system of PLSSia, you can't be expected to appreciate the work that is necessary to unscramble a confused pattern of sequential grants, In this area, the grants described by metes and bounds that were made between 1839 and 1914 by the Republic and, later, State of Texas have been historically confused. This ghost is part of the pattern of evidence that reveals the story.

Kent McMillan, post: 435151, member: 3 wrote: Naturally, working in the much simpler system of PLSSia, you can't be expected to appreciate the work that is necessary to unscramble a confused pattern of sequential grants, In this area, the grants described by metes and bounds that were made between 1839 and 1914 by the Republic and, later, State of Texas have been historically confused. This ghost is part of the pattern of evidence that reveals the story.

I can't believe that you really said that to Gene.

Gene's work in the Mining Districts of Colorado make your Texas M&B work look like child's play.

Loyal

Loyal, post: 435152, member: 228 wrote: Gene's work in the Mining Districts of Colorado make your Texas M&B work look like child's play.

The problem with that theory is the question he asked about the relevance of an abandoned corner. It can only be explained by ignorance of the complexities of reassembling a very confused pattern of metes and bounds grants. While I'll grant you that a bunch of mining claims located under various sets of cookbook procedures from definite identifiable monuments may look complex as a CAD drawing with a blizzard of lines, it would not make the cut compared to genuine complexity.

Kent McMillan, post: 435153, member: 3 wrote: The problem with that theory is the question he asked about the relevance of an abandoned corner. It can only be explained by ignorance of the complexities of reassembling a very confused pattern of metes and bounds grants. While I'll grant you that a bunch of mining claims located under various sets of cookbook procedures from definite identifiable monuments may look complex as a CAD drawing with a blizzard of lines, it would not make the cut compared to genuine complexity.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Loyal, post: 435156, member: 228 wrote: :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Well, the reality is that in a confused pattern of metes and bounds grants there may well be no common points of reference. There will certainly not be a handful of location monuments to which all grants are tied and there will typically not even be any common bearing basis.

One grant may be tied to a corner of a survey of over 4,000 acres that had been previously made, but which never made it to patent and now exists only as a ghost or phantom. Over time, the ideas of where the prior grants were actually located will typically vary as the county map is progressively revised, so it is important to wind back the movie and to consider what a surveyor in, say, 1876 might have had in view and which lines and corners he might have had actual knowledge of. In other words, a genuinely complex problem is one that is ill formed and for which the solution will proceed from rules that are to be deduced from the evidence.

Nothing I've read from Gene suggests that locating a menagerie of mining claims rises to that level.

Kent McMillan, post: 435157, member: 3 wrote: Well, the reality is that in a confused pattern of metes and bounds grants there may well be no common points of reference. There will certainly not be a handful of location monuments to which all grants are tied and there will typically not even be any common bearing basis.

One grant may be tied to a corner of a survey of over 4,000 acres that had been previously made, but which never made it to patent and now exists only as a ghost or phantom. Over time, the ideas of where the prior grants were actually located will typically vary as the county map is progressively revised, so it is important to wind back the movie and to consider what a surveyor in, say, 1876 might have had in view and which lines and corners he might have had actual knowledge of. In other words, a genuinely complex problem is one that is ill formed and for which the solution will proceed from rules that are to be deduced from the evidence.

Nothing I've read from Gene suggests that locating a menagerie of mining claims rises to that level.

Then you need to improve your reading skills (a LOT).

Loyal

Loyal, post: 435158, member: 228 wrote: Then you need to improve your reading skills (a LOT).

I've actually read many of Gene's posts that purport to demonstrate some high level of complexity, but they typically don't. He usually relies upon a messy map for proof of great complexity or some variation in formal instructions under which locations were made. In other words, it's more accounting work than detective work.

Well, Kent despite your retort, my questions are born out of curiosity. For instance, you state that you set a spike and washer in the a drill hole in the center of the mound. Based on previous photos of spikes with washers you have posted, I expected to see your normal 1-1/2" dia. washer with your name and RPLS number prominently displayed in the center of the mound. I didn't see anything resembling that in your second photo. Secondly, you always set substantial monuments, like a No. 4 to No. 6 rebar with large aluminum cap, clearly marked, and a distinct dimple marking the corner point for rehabilitated mounds of stone. So when you state that you set a spike and washer, I inferred that this mound was relatively unimportant to your work. While the spike and washer is more substantial than a PK nail in an asphalt road, it is not the standard monument that you normally set to perpetuate a corner.

There are occasions where a mineral survey was approved by the US GLO, but the mineral survey never went to patent. These corners are officially approved government corners and, as such can be used as control monuments to reestablish other government corners in the area. It appears that Texas has something similar, but you choose to call it an abandoned corner.

Before you chastise me too much for my ignorance of Texas survey complexities, your OP was very sparse in the details. Mr. Lee was a county surveyor. Was he also an LSLS with authority to set corners for surveys authorized by the Texas GLO? Or is the position of LSLS a more recent title? Your initial post did not say anything about why you were perpetuating the mound or why an earlier retracement surveyor was interested in its position in 1948. Was a second patent issued to cover the gap (if Mr. Lee's error created a gap). I was curious (and still am) about the circumstances.

The only thing that your OP made clear is that Mr. Lee changed his opinion regarding the corner position. Your opening post did not state whether the "abandoned" corner was set on private land, creating an overlap with a senior grant, or if it failed to fully delineate the vacant state land thereby leaving a gap. I assumed that because you perpetuated the corner, the error discovered by Mr. Lee in 1914 left a remainder of state land that was corrected by establishing a new corner 456 feet from the "abandoned" corner. Perhaps that assumption is incorrect.

If you want to give me grief about my questions, fine. Should I take that to mean that civil discourse between the two of us is no longer possible? Your initial post stated that, "The mound....is a bit of a novelty since it represents Mr. Lee's opinion in 1906 as to where the vacant land was situated, an idea which Mr. Lee had by 1914 abandoned in favor of another location for the corner about 456 ft. distant." Again, I am curious as to why you bothered to perpetuate an "abandoned" corner unless you are holding it as an angle point, or as a control station to reestablish the 1914 mound. You haven't stated yet whether you found the "correct" mound.

Kent McMillan, post: 435157, member: 3 wrote: Well, the reality is that in a confused pattern of metes and bounds grants there may well be no common points of reference. There will certainly not be a handful of location monuments to which all grants are tied and there will typically not even be any common bearing basis.

Whether you know it or not Kent, you just described how the great majority of the early mining claims were surveyed in Colorado. I'm pretty certain that you will dismiss this as poppycock, but that doesn't change the facts. Here are a few characteristics of lode mining claims that make them anything other than a bunch of simple rectangles thrown onto a heap and resembling, "a blizzard of lines":

• The initial right is a possessory right to the subsurface mineral estate and as such the corners and lines of the lode claim are not established until a discovery of a locatable mineral and the direction of the mineralized vein has been determined by the claimant;
• The discovery of a locatable mineral on land open to mineral entry is required, which means that each lode mining claim location is independent of any other claims in the area;
• Lode claims often overlap by design in order for the claimant to get their full right to the subsurface minerals, which is acknowledged in Del Monte Mining & Milling Co. v. Last Chance Mining and Milling Co. (171 U.S. 55);
• Conveyances are sequential so junior-senior rights of all areas in conflict must be determined;
• The mineral surveyor was required to show record positions of senior claims when the senior corners could not be found;
• For a significant period of time the mineral surveyor was required to falsify his returns to comply with an absurd General Land Office policy that required he show the record positions of the senior claims;
• Because of the above, some patents do not exclude senior claims that are in conflict and in other cases, the patent describes theoretical exclusions when no conflict exists based on the monumented positions;
• Determination of seniority is often complicated by the subsequent acts of the patentee;
• Hiatuses and gaps between lode claims frequently occur and any remaining Public Lands must be determined by a faithful retracement of the original lines; and
• Mineral surveys are often tied to far distant, poorly established, shifting monuments, supposed to be corners of the public survey.

Cheers,
Gene

Gene,
Does the general rule of whomever is first to patent office is senior? Personally, I've only run into overlapping claims once on a project in the lead-deadwood mining district.

Gene Kooper, post: 435160, member: 9850 wrote: Well, Kent despite your retort, my questions are born out of curiosity. For instance, you state that you set a spike and washer in the a drill hole in the center of the mound. Based on previous photos of spikes with washers you have posted, I expected to see your normal 1-1/2" dia. washer with your name and RPLS number prominently displayed in the center of the mound. I didn't see anything resembling that in your second photo. Secondly, you always set substantial monuments, like a No. 4 to No. 6 rebar with large aluminum cap, clearly marked, and a distinct dimple marking the corner point for rehabilitated mounds of stone.

First off, I seldom "rehabilitate" a stone mound in the sense of rebuilding the mound. Stones acquire a [trigger alert] PATINA on their sides exposed to years of weather and that patina can be important evidence of the age of the mound. Likewise, stones that may tumble off the mound will over years become embedded in the soil unless they are sitting on a bare rock outcrop. Removing those stones and restacking them on the mound also destroys that evidence of the age of the mound.

The stone mound is the monument and the purpose of setting a new marker of some sort is mainly to designate its center to give an exact point of reference for subsequent surveys. Installing a Spike and Washer marker in most rock mounds would require too much disassembly of the mound to do, whereas drilling a hole with a 20 inch long bit in a hammer drill can usually be done just by removing or shifting a couple of the upper stones in the mound. Driving a rebar into the drill hole and affixing a cap to it results in a reference point with identifying information on it with minimal disturbance of the mound.

In the case of that mound, it was possible to shift one stone in the mound and drill a hole into the rock upoin which the mound had been built using a short 3/8 in. bit for a spike. So, that is what I did.

In my judgment, the only future surveyors who are likely to ever recover the mound will either (a) have discovered its existence and the geodetic coordinates of the Spike and Washer at its center as described in the metes and bounds description that I will write for incorporation into a deed that will appear of record or will (b) upon finding the mound search for a ferrous marker at its center left by some prior resurvey. The Spike and Washer is visible without moving any stones.

Gene Kooper, post: 435160, member: 9850 wrote: Here are a few characteristics of lode mining claims that make them anything other than a bunch of simple rectangles thrown onto a heap and resembling, "a blizzard of lines":

• The initial right is a possessory right to the subsurface mineral estate and as such the corners and lines of the lode claim are not established until a discovery of a locatable mineral and the direction of the mineralized vein has been determined by the claimant;
• The discovery of a locatable mineral on land open to mineral entry is required, which means that each lode mining claim location is independent of any other claims in the area;
• Lode claims often overlap by design in order for the claimant to get their full right to the subsurface minerals, which is acknowledged in Del Monte Mining & Milling Co. v. Last Chance Mining and Milling Co. (171 U.S. 55);
• Conveyances are sequential so junior-senior rights of all areas in conflict must be determined;
• The mineral surveyor was required to show record positions of senior claims when the senior corners could not be found;
• For a significant period of time the mineral surveyor was required to falsify his returns to comply with an absurd General Land Office policy that required he show the record positions of the senior claims;
• Because of the above, some patents do not exclude senior claims that are in conflict and in other cases, the patent describes theoretical exclusions when no conflict exists based on the monumented positions;
• Determination of seniority is often complicated by the subsequent acts of the patentee;
• Hiatuses and gaps between lode claims frequently occur and any remaining Public Lands must be determined by a faithful retracement of the original lines; and
• Mineral surveys are often tied to far distant, poorly established, shifting monuments, supposed to be corners of the public survey.

I'm glad to hear that occasionally you'll encounter something that requires more than a cursory level of investigation, even if, as you say, it is the "early" mining claims in Colorado where more detective work is required.

I want to know what low down varmint stole Kents Stetson?

Is this position on one of the 1914 lines. Are the 1914 corners evident and independent of this position?

Scott Zelenak, post: 435199, member: 327 wrote: I want to know what low down varmint stole Kents Stetson?

I suspect we are all glad that Kent's picture is cropped right below the neck

Rankin_File, post: 435202, member: 101 wrote: Is this position on one of the 1914 lines. Are the 1914 corners evident and independent of this position?

Both the 1906 and 1914 locations depend upon a senior grant located in 1876. The stone mound that I found yesterday is what I think was built by Mr. Lee in 1906, not an original mark of the 1876 survey. The reason I think that is that the relatively small size of the mound doesn't fit the sort of more substantial mounds that the 1876 surveyor typically made. There is more evidence to be discovered to complete the picture.

[USER=327]@Scott Zelenak[/USER]

Beat me to it, Scott.

My immediate thought was, "Holy theft ring, Batman! Someone has stolen Kent's hat!"