I've come across an 1890's surveyor recently that called for a MOS, but the actual corner points were x's marked on stones set alongside the MOS.
> I've come across an 1890's surveyor recently that called for a MOS, but the actual corner points were x's marked on stones set alongside the MOS.
That belongs to the era when railroads had arrived, I'd suspect. In 1875, there were no railroads anywhere in the county where my project is located and so no railroad spikes to scavenge as chisels.
I'm pretty sure that the only marks I've seen cut on natural stone outcrops date from the period of transit and tape surveys, some of them "correcting" original surveys by cutting a mark on supposed true line and ignoring the mound beside it. When you're running across rough terrain with a surveying compass (or so-called "plain transit", which was basically just a 6-inch compass fitted with a telescope), and local landowners as chain carriers, I think you're probably satisfied with 1-vara diameter rock mounds.