Greek and Russian are both languages. Learning one requires learning many basic facts. Learning the other requires learning a different set of basic facts. The one doing the learning needs nearly the same set of skills to become competent at either.
Colonial Surveyors are snootier, superior, and fix problems that no one ever knew they had in ways that no one would ever understand, or care about. PLSS surveyors have a manual to tell them what to do 🙂
foggyidea, post: 440436, member: 155 wrote: Colonial Surveyors are snootier, superior, and fix problems that no one ever knew they had in ways that no one would ever understand, or care about. PLSS surveyors have a manual to tell them what to do 🙂
Chicks dig Colonial Surveyors
The PLS system is the right way. Everything to the south of that is wrong. Hahaha
Conrad, post: 440421, member: 6642 wrote: So is this back-and-forth between some members of the board kinda like a Chevy v Ford argument? No real difference?
I would put PLSS on the Ford side of that equation, Fixed Or Repaied Daily.
By the way, I am a MOPAR guy.
Paul in non PLSS PA
foggyidea, post: 440436, member: 155 wrote: Colonial Surveyors are snootier, superior, and fix problems that no one ever knew they had in ways that no one would ever understand, or care about. PLSS surveyors have a manual to tell them what to do 🙂
funny guy
The fundamental difference between the PLSS and the colonial system is that the colonial states were occupied before they were surveyed. The PLSS was (mostly) surveyed before settlement.
Conrad, post: 440421, member: 6642 wrote: So is this back-and-forth between some members of the board kinda like a Chevy v Ford argument? No real difference?
No, there is an enormous difference in the levels of complexity of the two systems. The PLSS is about as simple as it gets and a system of metes and bounds land grants such as that followed in Texas is about as complex as it gets.
The simplest demonstration would be to compare the level of effort necessary to research the boundaries of a typical land grant. In the typical PLSS township, there is one map that shows the entire 6-mile by 6-mile township as subdivided in one operation by one surveyor. There are field notes that describe every line and corner established by that survey. That is the basic framework of the system to which all subsequent surveys within the various sections of the township will refer.
The folks in PLSSia can begin knowing from 15 minutes of research that there are no lands in the township that were omitted from the original subdivision. That means it is easy to know with relative certainty that all of the adjoining lands have passed into private hands, with no remnants remaining in federal or state ownership.
By contrast, in a metes and bounds system such as that of Texas, the research required for a resurvey of a typical land grant is much more extensive, being often a matter of days or weeks, rather than minutes. This is because one is dealing with a fabric made of many independent or semi-independent parts, each with its own history and boundary evidence. Because the pattern of the private titles existing in the patchwork of original land grants is incrementally subtractive from the public domain, lands being withdrawn based upon the individual surveys, a very real possibility is that the resulting patchwork does not exactly cover all of the lands that originally belonged to the Republic of Texas and its successor, the State of Texas. Those remnants remain vested in the State of Texas and that title is immune to the operation of statutes of limitation on adverse possession.
So, very complex system with high cost of failure to adequately investigate versus very simple system with very low risk of undisclosed federal or state lands.
sounds ea
Kent McMillan, post: 440454, member: 3 wrote: No, there is an enormous difference in the levels of complexity of the two systems. The PLSS is about as simple as it gets and a system of metes and bounds land grants such as that followed in Texas is about as complex as it gets.
The simplest demonstration would be to compare the level of effort necessary to research the boundaries of a typical land grant. In the typical PLSS township, there is one map that shows the entire 6-mile by 6-mile township as subdivided in one operation by one surveyor. There are field notes that describe every line and corner established by that survey. That is the basic framework of the system to which all subsequent surveys within the various sections of the township will refer.
The folks in PLSSia can begin knowing from 15 minutes of research that there are no lands in the township that were omitted from the original subdivision. That means it is easy to know with relative certainty that all of the adjoining lands have passed into private hands, with no remnants remaining in federal or state ownership.
By contrast, in a metes and bounds system such as that of Texas, the research required for a resurvey of a typical land grant is much more extensive, being often a matter of days or weeks, rather than minutes. This is because one is dealing with a fabric made of many independent or semi-independent parts, each with its own history and boundary evidence. Because the pattern of the private titles existing in the patchwork of original land grants is incrementally subtractive from the public domain, lands being withdrawn based upon the individual surveys, a very real possibility is that the resulting patchwork does not exactly cover all of the lands that originally belonged to the Republic of Texas and its successor, the State of Texas. Those remnants remain vested in the State of Texas and that title is immune to the operation of statutes of limitation on adverse possession.
So, very complex system with high cost of failure to adequately investigate versus very simple system with very low risk of undisclosed federal or state lands.
sounds easy if you never done it
Mark Mayer, post: 440452, member: 424 wrote: The fundamental difference between the PLSS and the colonial system is that the colonial states were occupied before they were surveyed. The PLSS was (mostly) surveyed before settlement.
Occupied areas of California were mostly Ranchos (and therefor metes & bounds) before the PLSS came to town. Think San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles Valley... where the majority of surveyors work.
Here is my take which probably does not answer the question: Metes and Bounds systems - non-PLSS - states grew naturally out of existing English (and other countries) systems brought over the ocean, whereby Farms, Towns and Cities grew by an accepted and known system of written record-keeping which was necessary to comply with the Old Statute of Frauds, it was an "organized" civil system of record keeping used by the public, including the Founding Fathers as colonists.
PLSS states came into being not as a continuation of an existing system, but as a method to dispose of a new countries' lands to the West, when purchased from the Indians, to the private settlers. So the main difference is OLD vs. NEW. The same Founding Fathers who were familiar with the existing system some of whom actually worked as surveyors, in an historical stroke of luck, invented the new system drawing from their applied experience as land owners and land surveyors.
Of the many features, these Founding Fathers were inventing a means to dispose of lands to a free society and distinctly meant for the federal government to only retain what was left over after the private sector had their lands surveyed. Men who had been surveyors themselves understood clearly that in order to reduce the phenomenon of pincushions, they wrote into the methods, beginning in 1785 (before we had a constitution) that the procedure of LINES RUN ON THE GROUND actually created property lines. In other words, no where has it ever been contemplated that surveyors with GPS would re-run each section and discard all previous survey work - as settled and enjoyed by the private sector - in the name of upholding "Federal Interest Lands", an unfortunate practice by a small minority of surveyors today, but which wreaks an unnecessarily great amount of havoc and chaos.
Peter Ehlert, post: 440465, member: 60 wrote: Occupied areas of California were mostly Ranchos (and therefor metes & bounds) before the PLSS came to town.
The Willamette Valley (ie/Portland-Vancouver area and south to Eugene) was another area that was partially settled before the PLSS got here. The answer was "Donation Land Claims", which from a re-survey perspective, I think, are very much like Ranchos.
A quick read of the thread is more informative in the study of narcissistic personality disorder than anything survey related. Back to the thread.
PLSS versus non-PLSS is only part of the equation. Some PLSS States have vast unsurveyed areas, others are considered complete. Agricultural areas occupied prior to Government Survey are common in some areas and all but absent in others. Some places the mineral rights match the surface, others not so much. The list goes on. Bill did a good job of summarizing the typical differences, but it runs a lot deeper when boots hit the ground.
Peter Ehlert, post: 440464, member: 60 wrote: sounds ea
sounds easy if you never done it
Well, in a typical PLSS township, if you wanted to verify whether there was any unsurveyed state or federal land adjoining some section of land that was the object of your survey, what beyond an examination of the township plat and the records of patents issued by reference to it would you feel obliged to do?
Kent McMillan, post: 440454, member: 3 wrote: ..So, very complex system with high cost of failure to adequately investigate versus very simple system with very low risk of undisclosed federal or state lands.
Definition of "complex" in Texas as applied to surveying:
Start "somewhere"...run on a bearing some distance in varas and miss a pile of rocks by 100 varas for line and 50 varas for distance. Set new pile of rocks while convincing yourself the last guy had it all wrong, take pics of windmill, and hit BBQ joint and garage sale on your way home. 😉
That there is some pretty high-pocketed rocket surgery fer sure. 😉
