Unfortunately, I see this stuff all the time. Licensed land surveyors too lazy to do research and too lazy to look for corners of record. They'd rather just calculate positions and set their own monuments. Too many times the Center of Sections and 1/16 Corners are ignored if they are "old" stones.
In 2004, I recovered the Center of Section and the E 1/16 of the NW Quarter that were set in the 1880's and the survey is recorded in the courthouse. Both were recovered by doing some searching with a probe and spade without measuring. Both subsequently checked out for position. I left them uncovered and flagged. Now I see that this "surveyor" has ignored both stones and set his own rebar and caps in 2010.
YOUNG SURVEYORS TAKE NOTICE - DO NOT BE LIKE THIS GUY WHO ONLY KNOWS HOW TO PUSH BUTTONS AND DO SOME BASIC MATH!
Center of Section
E 1/16, NW 1/4
IF you are going to reject stuff, you should KNOW where it is, and have a good reason.
IF you are going to accept stuff, you should KNOW where it is, and have a good reason.
Jerry, I think surveyors should get a letter to the BOR for this. "Failure to perform a professional survey, with adequate knowledge of previous or existing monuments".
As the economy sinks, I see more and more surveyors doing "Survival Surveys".
Better to make 500 bucks this week, than sit and do nothing.
Nate
This is the type of character who never goes to the center of section to search for anything that might disagree with his "perfect world" mathematical solution based on four quarter corner monuments that most likely did not exist when the center corner stone was set. If you don't actually visit the area of the center corner as calculated and do a thorough search for record monuments you are just asking to have the BOR ask you some really, really tough questions in a very, very formal manner. If you don't visit the center corner, you most definitely aren't going to search at the 1/4 1/4 corner area as that might throw a kink in your otherwise perfect little scenario.
Doofuses (doofi?) like this really need to be called on the carpet and their future put in jeopardy.
Mr Cow, that is precisely, and sentimentally my feelings too.
N
1st) What state did this occur? 2nd) how can a center of a section be located before the 1/4 corners are set? Not trying to call anyone out, just looking for clarification.
Just a couple questions.
How far off is his stuff compared to your calcs?
How do you find theses section corners by "searching with a probe and spade without measuring."
To me and my eye those just look like plain old rocks?
I'm not questioning you or your methods...but I have little idea what your talking about.
> To me and my eye those just look like plain old rocks?
To my eye those rocks look like taking a couple of shots to tie them into my survey and taking an early lunch. I sure as hell wouldn't be setting any two-bit re-bar anywhere near either one.
Ok..but around here I'd be digging that stupid rock out so fast so I could try and find a rebar/monument!...if thats my calculated position.
Its just a rock no? Unless there aren't many rocks where this was taken.
I will attempt to clarify my statement
I said that the quarter corner monuments used by the current surveyor may not have been in place at the time the center of section monument was set. What I meant by that was that there were different monuments in place over one hundred years ago when the center corner monument was set. That shiny cotton spindle in a slick asphalt road may or may not be anywhere close to where a stake and pits was located when the center corner monument was established relative to that stake and pits. Multiply that possibility by four as there are four quarter corners. The button pushers mathematical perfection is based on the monuments found today. There is little reason to believe they are perfect perpetuations of the original monuments set in the Government survey way back in the Dark Ages. The historic center corner monument may be deemed to be "perfect". Of course, that will require the modern surveyor to accept the fact that not all straight lines are straight and not all calculated positions have any relation to reality.
It's not just a rock. Nature did not separate it from its kinfolk and then place it vertically. Man did that.
Over 22 years ago I was working on a project in rough pasture country with millions of rocks, but only about a dozen of them were survey stones. The client drove me to a remote corner of his property to show me how to get there once I got underway with his project. We were discussing survey monuments as we drove out there. As we pulled up near the corner he asked how I could tell a survey stone from a rock. I pointed to a stone about 100 feet away from us and told him that what I was looking for would look like that stone. We got out of his truck, walked over to the stone I had noticed and there discovered the "1/4" carved into the face of the stone. He was in awe of my skills immediately.
How bad did his rebar miss your position?
When I find a stone, which is rare in this area, I try to set a small MAGNAIL in a drill hole so that the position is repeatable, another surveyor can tell that this was used by a surveyor and it helps to find the stone with a locator.
Those look like rocks to me. 🙂 LOL There have been times that I've really really really wanted a stone to be something, but it was just a stupid rock.
What boils my blood is surveyors that know the 1/16th corner was set in 1890 and numerous deeds are tied to it but ignore decades of reliance and history and set a new monument at the calculated position.
Again this surveyor knew the monument is there, the 1890 redwood post was replaced with a concrete post in the 1950s.
Unfortunately the losing party defended the ensuing lawsuit in propria persona and didn't hire an expert so the Judge accepted the calculated corner and declared it correct because the only expert was the calculator operator. The Courts apparently won't let a party get old field notes (the 1890 notes are available) and old survey maps into evidence, you need an expert for that.
We've got a fair amount of "native" monuments that were set in the 1600's here in New England. They are rare to find, but occasionally.
" The Courts apparently won't let a party get old field notes (the 1890 notes are available) and old survey maps into evidence, you need an expert for that."
:good: That is a great point.
I was just thinking of this subject as it reminds me of a recent survey I was on. The original monuments were stones of varying sizes with notches and "1/4" carvings set in the 1880s with pits and mounds. Most of the roads in the area were built up over the original corners so that they section corner is somewhere in the middle of the intersection. However, on this project, very few graded roads existed at all. Sounds like a good chance of finding some right?
Well, I spent 4 days looking over about a half dozen sections. There were no previous surveys or corner records to go off, it was an extremely rural area. There were use lines, fences, etc. that could get you a search radius of about 50'. At every corner, one of three scenarios played out:
1. No stone of any kind within the search radius. Extensive probing finds absolutly nothing. 2. a single stone was found that roughly matched the GLO notes' diminesions, but was not marked in any way and no evidence of pits or mound. 3. Hundreds of stones, many of which match the record dimensions, no markings at all, stones spaced 3-4 feet apart in a 50' radius (an overwhelming amount of evidence.
I spent hours with wire brushes and probes and shovels closely examining many, many stones. Not one was marked as it should have been. Is a stone that is buried in an upright posisiton and not marked good enough evidence? Is a stone of any kind good enough in the absnece of all other evid3ence?
I've seen licensed surveyors much more experienced than me accept what they refer to as original evidence, when to my eyes it looks no different than everything else at the corner. The frustrating part is that no licensed surveyors that I have every retraced go though the amount of effort and research that I see from the guys on this board. These skills are being lost at a very rapid rate and few old-timers even had the skills to begin with.
I don't know, it's just that when I see how good and thorough guys like J. Pembry or McMillan are on this board it makes me want to quit surveying and go back to milking cows.
Honest to God quote from a professional surveyor: "I'm not going to hold some rock when I have perfectly good coordinates on this plat"
Actually, Holy, in Texas,
due to the recent changes in the Professional Land Surveying Practices Act, we (R. P. L. S.'s) must report other surveyors every time we see evidence of surveying that does not meet the minimum standards of Texas law.
Good luck with that.
Good point
The problem is that nearly everyone would find themselves under BOR review as there are an infinite number of excuses to label someone else's work as inferior, especially if you want to cripple the "competition" that is apparently attempting to steal "your" clients.
This is something that just isn't seen in my area because there are no natural stones that size. There's no bedrock either. Bridges and structures aren't build on bedrock because no matter how deep you drill, you won't find it.
There are gravel pits in this area, but he rocks are almost all baseball size or smaller.
I'll ship ya down some if you want...we got plenty here in Connecticut 😉