Has anyone done any analysis on US Deputy Surveyor's Township or Range lines for the whole 6 miles or more?
I'm looking for any mathematical results, whether just an average or a more statistically sophisticated result.
It should have a basis or be related to at least to some physical evidence from that period since we sometimes reset corners based on single proportion, so the greater the distance from actual evidenced-based corners, the better.
I just did one for a range line ran by William Austin Burt in February of 1840, and in 6 miles, his variation from the actual GPS measured corners was a mere 37 feet. My dilemma is that none of the corners has any original evidence associated with them, so it has to be assumed that there is a locational error of up to maybe 20 feet on either end.
I know that errors aren't all systematic, but some can be random (such as dropping a half chain) but it seems like it would be an interesting and maybe informative exercise.
This probably isn't what you were looking for, but.............
I have data for 12.5 miles of range line that was run as part of the 30 mile run coming north from the Standard Parallel. This includes all of one township and parts of two others. The variation of distance for each one-half mile segment along that course varies from +/- 2 feet to +/- 300 feet. At one point along this continuous run there is a kink of over 200 feet in a specific one-half mile segment such that the northerly continuation is about 200 feet to the east of the projection of the line coming in from the south. There is a similar but smaller kink a few miles further north. This was in 1865.
This is one small part of the reason I laugh when certain people make certain claims about the honesty of the original crews. And you really don't want to get me started on the perfectly curved east-west lines that some claim must exist.
How certain are you that you are looking at original corners?
That is an excellent question. I can attest to several of them being stones as I supervised the digging to find them. However, I have found no stones in this county with markings as typically expected for original stones. None! Hence, even the stones found can be questioned as to their authenticity despite a lack of information supporting the setting of those stones by someone else at a later date.
Most of the other corners are monuments set about 1964 to replace various monuments found prior to road improvement to replace a gravel road with a far better quality chip and seal road with all new culverts and right-of-way widening at that time.
Many sections are quite misshapen so finding such irregularities along the range line as well is not a surprise.
> However, I have found no stones in this county with markings as typically expected for original stones. None!
At least your Deputy Surveyors set stones. Ours pretty much only set wood posts.
I'm sure there is lots of variation in original surveys and areas. The more experience I get with this sort of retracement the more respect I have for the guys that did it. A lot of the problems that I see is what happened after the deputies completed their work. Maybe I've experienced lots of variation, from parts of the valley done early where post and mounds were set and almost no original evidence remains, to the next surveys where marked stones were set and some can be found, to foothills and mountains where stones where set and man hasn't messed to much with them (you can find pristine corners a lot). Then you get to when they started using brass caps and steel pipes where there is little doubt you have an original.
In almost all circumstance when I've gotten onto a good string of original monuments they line up better and are spaced more evenly than the typical mess you find where man has been messing with the landscape a lot. Just my experience. It's sad that the PLSS hasn't been maintained. I don't think we should blame the original surveyors that local government hasn't kept up that end of the deal. But blame is a moot point, it's figuring out how to fix/repair/restore boundaries that needs our attention. Trying to refit everything into a bunch of restored squares we all know are not original may not always be the solution. Stabilizing established boundaries and repairing the documentation is what's needed for our computer driven age. Aligning the recorded record with the GIS, the legal boundaries and the real world with what folks expect online out of the virtual world, that's what I see as the challenge and future of land surveying.
In a relatively flat and clear (grasslands) environment the guys were fairly consistent. In the areas I've found where more than two original monuments that are still standing, their reported and my current distances can be as close as +/- 2'. I've never seen two original monuments that were any more than apart than 5' or so from record in flat country.
BUT one unique quality I have found about the original surveys....
As close as they were about setting corners on a line is one thing. But when they closed on a line, they almost always invariably must have pencil whipped it. Usually when they closed on a township line running north, what is really there and what they reported is not too bad: 15' to 20'.
When they closed on the west line of a township, I don't think they even walked over there to look. Honestly. I've seen some in the 30' to 40' range. And it seems to happen no matter which crew. I believe it had something to do with their procedures.
Check out N 37.565807, W -95.160978
Blast from your past.
This quarter corner is 12.5 miles north of the standard parallel on the range line. Slowly pan to the north several miles and notice what happens on either side of that range line in the first mile east and west. Go a total of 11.5 miles to the north and pan west for six miles and east for six miles. Notice the bizarre behavior on the township line/county line.
Extreme stubbing out. They even did part of the township line that way without checking across. Probably had multiple parties working, might have been doing multiple townships as one large subdivision survey. That's just my best guess. The notes don't say what they done. The notes says what they were told to say to be accepted.
Was that area grassland or wooded when it was surveyed?
If you look here:
38° 5'10.03"N 96°32'16.51"W
You'll see a couple of the watershed dams I designed about 1990. The big one is about 300,000 cubic yds in the embankment (my largest dam). My mark on the Kansas Flint Hills.
Yeah, Chanute, the land of wind, ticks, chiggers and hole diggers!
Dams so big it takes two counties to hold them
No one would accidentally drive up to either one on their way to somewhere (anywhere). That's serious cattle country where the ratio is 1000 head of cattle per person. We were within about a dozen miles (as the crow flies after packing his lunch) of those dams around Memorial Day this year when we passed through Bazaar on the way to Madison. That's not a drive most people would want to take during bad weather.
I'd think that if they didn't close to the west, they had to make up the measurements, so that should be a tip off.
I've often wondered just how they actually subdivided the townships, and if it was in accordance with the procedures. If they ran as the notes said, they'd have to travel 36 more miles than if they could shortcut it. The temptation must have been great, especially in February when it was billy goat cold and food was short, and the country was poor. The only thing between them and a warm hearth and a pocket full of gold dollars was their affidavit and the eye of the Surveyor General.
That being said, no one really is getting to the question: Has anyone done any analysis on US Deputy Surveyor's Township or Range lines for the whole 6 miles or more?
Thanks!
I've tried to retrace them before. Not sure what you mean by analysis. I jump from one side of the township to the other side, get a measurement and compare to the chain length and bearing all the time. Helps determine which way was north and the average length of the chain. Most chains were long in my area (about a link) and north is about 1 degree West of geodetic, but it varies.
The early surveys (1855) must have padded the chain a link and some how got north off a bit. Later about 1870 when the GLO started back up in Utah, many of the old lines where measured and the chain adjusted to the original length (extra link) and their bearings also tweaked to sort of match up. That's just what they did and I've read it in the notes where they "adjusted" their instruments to the previous range lines. Then later about 1895-1900 they trued everything new up to north and a standard chain, lots of correction lines and closing corners where you wouldn't expect them. You can never assume anything anywhere in the PLSS, you need to LOOK at the records, see what they said they did.
"Range line analysis"
I have recently only retraced one Range Line for the complete six miles.
Although the entire 480 chs. was only 50 lnks. or so short of the reported distance, some of the interior corners didn't fit by 1 chain, or more. This could hardly be considered an analysis due to the fact there was only one existing stone on the entire twp. line. The rest were the typical non-pedigreed rebars and PKs that find their way into the ground over the years...
This could hardly be considered an analysis simply because the original line had been pretty much obliterated, save one stone.
Interestingly, when we calculated the constant bearing arc (from end to end, NOT astronomically), the various pins and nails we had found for the corners all fit reasonably well (within 3' or so of a true parallel). Although the pins and nails may have been a poor perpetuation of the original line, they all still seemed to have a positional harmony that probably could not have been by chance.
I guess to perform a Range Line Analysis, one would have to find one intact. Sadly, in this part of the country, those are as hard to come by as hen's teeth.
"Range line analysis"
"Although the entire 480 chs. was only 50 lnks. or so short of the reported distance, some of the interior corners didn't fit by 1 chain, or more. This could hardly be considered an analysis due to the fact there was only one existing stone on the entire twp. line. The rest were the typical non-pedigreed rebars and PKs that find their way into the ground over the years... "
Paden, that's where I was going, and the same pitfall as mine. In my 22 years of doing this (Gawd, has it been that long - you think I'd be smarter by now), William A. Burt, the inventor of the solar transit, has been one of the best US Deputy surveyors to follow. How I'd like to spend a couple weeks in his crew. Around here, we give almost no credibility to the USDSs, but will hold doubling through 40 corners that were never surveyed in to set a section corner way off in distance and/or direction.
I'd like to think that somehow the best guys that originally divided up the land did at least an acceptable job, and maybe better than that - knowing that the next crew in there would catch their mistakes, if any. Especially the surveyor who had 5 sons, all surveyors, and who was bothered enough by the local magnetic variation to invent a mechanical device to reduce spherical geometry to find astronomical north in a matter of minutes in the field.
