One can build a better mouse trap but it will most certainly still confuse some mouseketeers.
paden cash, post: 354811, member: 20 wrote: OMG Kent...have you been studying to take the Public Domain exam in some PLSS state???
Paden, don't you think they might have used compasses and magnetic variations from north in Metes-&-Bounds States?
not my real name, post: 354820, member: 8199 wrote: It is a compass. Like any compass the needle does not move. The needle points to magnetic north. Do you understand what you are saying? All compasses have needles that do not move.
Surveyors invented some kludge way of calibrating a compass so that it reads "direct" and is a source of confusion for everybody else. Like I said before... I can read a compass. It is not necessary to kludge up the dial in order to read a bearing on any compass. Especially with a compass that has a needle which does not move.
Oh my, aren't we getting snarkey. I think the point that it is a compass on a survey instrument, is because you aim the sights on the survey instrument @ the target to see which way you're going (or which way you need to go) and read the bearing off the needle.
Tom Adams, post: 354835, member: 7285 wrote: Paden, don't you think they might have used compasses and magnetic variations from north in Metes-&-Bounds States?
Sure. Kent's remark just seemed like it came from someone that was familiar with PLSS retracements.
NOT that Kent isn't. But with his critical attitude toward surveys made north of the Red, I had no idea he was even open to the idea the public domain had ever even REALLY actually been surveyed up here!...:snarky:
paden cash, post: 354837, member: 20 wrote: Sure. Kent's remark just seemed like it came from someone that was familiar with PLSS retracements.
NOT that Kent isn't. But with his critical attitude toward surveys made north of the Red, I had no idea he was even open to the idea the public domain had ever even REALLY actually been surveyed up here!...
Unlike PLSSia, the problem of dealing with the variation is central to retracing the patchwork of 19th-century metes and bounds grants in Texas. Unlike the vastly simpler PLSS checkerboard all laid out at the same time, the Texas patchwork was constructed over time by many different surveyors. While it was a common practice for one specific value of variation to be used in a Land District for decades, that doesn't mean that the actual angle of magnetic declination obliged by remaining constant until jumping by an even half-degree when the District Surveyor decided to instruct his deputies to use a different value of variation.
Kent McMillan, post: 354853, member: 3 wrote: the Texas patchwork was constructed over time by many different surveyors
Do you seriously believe that all of PLSSia was laid out in 1 day; by 1 surveyor?
You are correct; it was Ted Dura's Great Great Grandfather...:snarky:
:^)
RADAR, post: 354860, member: 413 wrote: Do you seriously believe that all of PLSSia was laid out in 1 day; by 1 surveyor?
What is more typical of PLSSia is that you are dealing with townships that were subdivided at the same time, one deputy running out the lines of 36 sections as one more or less continuous operation.
That is a much simpler situation than the typical metes and bounds case of original land grants that were surveyed in sequence over years or decades, by many different surveyors. The PLSSia research is virtually nothing compared to what is required in a metes and bounds state like Texas when resurveying some original land grant.
Tom Adams, post: 354835, member: 7285 wrote: Paden, don't you think they might have used compasses and magnetic variations from north in Metes-&-Bounds States?
Of course we do 🙂
Tom Adams, post: 354835, member: 7285 wrote: on't you think they might have used compasses and magnetic variations from north in Metes-&-Bounds States?
Reading a compass wasn't the point of the jest. Kent was discussing other procedural aspects of GLO deputies.
I'm still waiting for the definitive explanation of Jerry's question.
Bill93, post: 354880, member: 87 wrote: Reading a compass wasn't the point of the jest. Kent was discussing other procedural aspects of GLO deputies.
I'm still waiting for the definitive explanation of Jerry's question.
Bill,
I think Kent may have an accurate hypothesis. From his explanation:
"Don't you suppose that the solar compass was used to get the variation, but that the lines were actually run by the needle? If so, any error in the variation needed to retrace a particular line would almost certainly be calculated from the fallings, i.e. by running a trial line at a certain variation and from the miss at the end of the line computing the variation at which the line should have been run to hit the corner. That is how that problem was worked in Texas in 1890."
This fits the criteria in that the crew actually running the lines (probably by the needle) may not have been in possession of the solar compass. Determining the variation between magnetic and astronomic north probably took some time and precision; two things of which the compass and ax crews had very little. They were probably running on predetermined instructions and recently (hopefully) determined variations.
Whether they actually followed the instructions is another chapter entirely, but that would somewhat explain the notes.
Whether they actually followed the instructions is another chapter entirely.
And, of course, it's revealed in that chapter that they rarely did, but it is most fascinating to learn how they really did it. I love to hear the stories about how townships were really subdivided; plus it's invaluable for retracement if you know how the work was actually done.
Any good stories about the realities of early PLLS on the ground? Educate Kent if you would; although I know he has degrees in most relevant areas with minors in all the rest :>)
Don
Don Blameuser, post: 354886, member: 30 wrote: Whether they actually followed the instructions is another chapter entirely.
And, of course, it's revealed in that chapter that they rarely did, but it is most fascinating to learn how they really did it. I love to hear the stories about how townships were really subdivided; plus it's invaluable for retracement if you know how the work was actually done.Any good stories about the realities of early PLLS on the ground? Educate Kent if you would; although I know he has degrees in most relevant areas with minors in all the rest :>)
Don
Haven't seen your name here lately, Don. I hope everything is well.
Actually there are no GOOD stories about the original surveys, around here anyway...lots of stories with pencil whipped townships however. The most frequent infraction is not actually closing on the north line of a township, and recording bogus closing distances that are in error, sometimes one to three chains.
Every township is a new story. I don't guess I blame them. They were getting paid by the chain...and the notes were reviewed thousands of miles away...after the check cleared.
While you fellas are out throwing punches, and making noise, I will tell you, that I have struggled to solve all of this.... And, I actually used the method mentioned above... the needle does not move, but the frame around it does. However, a magnet in your shirt pocket, CAN make it move. It's a fact, that I was one of the first to drive a whump whump vehicle. I installed some 100 watt speakers, in the doors, of my 1974 ford pickup. 4 of them. And, it would make things shake. AND, these speakers had magnets in them. And, I was young. I was maybe 16. And I played with dad's compass. AND that screwed up his faithful suunto, to the point he had to replace it.
Anyway, yawl have fun. Dad got real upset. He started cussing, and saying something was bad wrong with his compass. I finally told him I'd been playing with it with, one of my speakers. (I had some behind the seat too) and it sure upset him. He wanted details. I filled him in. He was in disbelief. But, it was a lesson learned.
🙂
On the directional gyro the card is free to rotate under the lubber line therefore the markings are clockwise.
On the surveyor's compass the needle rotates over the card and the bearing is read under the needle therefore the markings are counter clockwise.
For those unfamiliar with 19th-century compass surveying practice, here's an actual example. This November, 1890 entry is from the field book of James Weed, an engineer/surveyor with the Southern Pacific Railroad who had been appointed as State Surveyor to sort out where in the world various land grants made by the State of Texas to the Galveston Harrisburg and San Antonio Rwy. Co. in 1880 and 1881 out in Far West Texas were actually located on the ground.
Mr. Weed began at a large rock mound that another State Surveyor had built to mark the Northwest corner of a certain grant known as Survey 12 in Block A-2.
Per Weed:
Beg at NW cor. 12, Blk A2
S[outh] 1909 [varas] pt. [point] 13 vrs. East of E M [Earth Mound] & Pit
Trial Variation 10 deg. 4' E - Transit Line
S[outh] 1908 [varas] to a pt. 26 vrs. East of a Rock Md [Mound] mkd SW13.
Changed variation to 9 deg. 40'E at this point I ran West ...
In Kent's example I was trying to figure out how the original mounds were set and how accurate they would be but I suppose that doesn't really matter. Weed's intent was not necessarily to find true north but to get on the same system as the previous surveyor.
Andy Nold, post: 354992, member: 7 wrote: In Kent's example I was trying to figure out how the original mounds were set and how accurate they would be but I suppose that doesn't really matter. Weed's intent was not necessarily to find true north but to get on the same system as the previous surveyor.
What Weed's task was consisted of first retracing a traverse the L.W. Durrell had run between a couple of springs in 1881 (I think it was). Durrell had located a large series of surveys nearly entirely on paper from that random traverse, generating field notes that called for just a handful of monuments, either along the traverse or tied to it, in about a hundred sections. The three mounds marking the two nominal miles that James Weed ran to adjust his variation were for the purpose of locating the line of the block they bounded as well as to get close enough to Durrell to follow his footsteps in the form of rock mounds he had made at angle points on the traverse.
J. Penry, post: 354738, member: 321 wrote: The year is 1890 and the 5th PM in southern South Dakota.
I reread the beginning of the notes and the surveyor is using a Young's Improved Solar Compass with Smith's attachment. This seems a little surprising that he is using this instrument instead of a compass to break down the township. Perhaps it is his normal instrument that he uses. So, ignore the image I posted above of a regular compass dial.
Near the center of Section 11, before starting, he does an astro and states that the magnetic bearing of Polaris is N 3å¡10' W. He then establishes a true meridian and the Variation is 13å¡28' E.
I've always understood that the solar compass was the instrument of choice because it was always correcting to true north, possibly that is where the difference lies. They knew back then that magnetic was "quirky" at best and used the solar compass as a way to correct for that and hold true lines.
I've been shown how they worked, but don't ask me to demonstrate one:-S
I can "wing ding" a solar direction..... It's how you find your truck, when you have been out for a long circuitous hike.
Mr. Penry
How many days are between the first reading and the second reading?
Was the same person running the compass?
My compass will change if there is iron around it.
