From Professor Kazuo Kobayashi in Japan:
Dear Cliff,
Thank you for the valuable communication about the East Japan tsunami last year.
Because it is Washington, there are ORCAS ISLAND, the San Juan Islands in the United States of America West Coast.
A flotage caused by the huge tsunami of the East Japan great earthquake disaster of the last year will be 15,000 tons or more, and a drum of 208 liters was found with an early thing in Washington in last December.
It is predicted that much jetsam will arrive at the United States in 2013.
Illustrating “4557, 52,” the stake of the country investigation is certainly thing of the "cadastral survey" business with the thing by the National Land Agency of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan.
It is one of the border stakes such as the residential land, not a marking stone for the thresholds of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the fourth order triangulation points.
Particularly, because the urban cadastral survey of Tokyo and Osaka are not performed yet and it was carried out in the Tohoku district, with the great earthquake disaster, the stake was drained, and it seems that the stake drifted to ORCAS ISLAND, the San Juan islands.
Kazuo
Cliff - Nice detective work!