First, dating to the day that the monument was discovered is not salient; the date you signed the survey for recordation holds.
In Washington where Doug works:
WAC 332-130-050(1)(B)(e)(iv) Give the physical description of any monuments shown, found, established or reestablished, including type, size, and date visited;
BTW, I like the rule. Once a surveyor breaks a section down and establishes local control, for some surveyors it is possible that they will rarely, if ever, visit that monument again (depending on location). I want to know if this is from their records from 1975. It makes it a bit easier to understand if the monument I find is of a different nature than what they found.
It is, unfortunately, standard practice in WA, but that doesn't make it right. It's bad here on my side of the state, but it's much worse on the other side from what I've seen. I did a little topo in Island County for my cousin at his vacation cabin. I did a bit of boundary research just to see what to look for to put the boundary on the topo for the engineer. I found all the corners and they all matched the record both for material and measurement, but I am probably the only surveyor to ever retrace anything in that plat and accept the found monuments. Most list a falling (x.x'N by x.x'E) on EVERY SINGLE FOUND MONUMENT. They don't seem to hold anything, or give any indication of what they did hold to determine their fallings. My guess is that they held a section corner that they don't even show on their survey, but it's a big time dubious way of doing things. The plat was from the 60's and the section corner was stamped something in the mid 90's.
It ticks me off so much to see this that I've started writing an article about it. I keep getting distracted by other projects, so it's been an ongoing project for over a year. A little hint on the content: the title is?ÿIs it the Corner or Isn't it? and the subtitle is The Paper Pincushion Will be the Downfall of Our Profession.?ÿ
And then, after several years of failing to return to that monument because they KNOW where it is, they actually go to the monument and discover, to their absolute horror, that they had transposed numbers in describing its location from that first visit.?ÿ Instead of 2630. 98 feet from Point X, it is actually 2638.90 feet.?ÿ A number which they have carelessly carried as fact into slicing out tiny little aliquots.?ÿ West half of the south half of the east half of the north half of the northeast quarter of southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of the section.
Many years ago, using a total station, we traversed in to find the monument at the center of a section that had been found by another firm a few years earlier.?ÿ They, in fact, were chopping out a five-acre tract that was an aliquot description.?ÿ What we found made no sense.?ÿ So we reran that traverse backwards and came out almost dead on from where we had started.?ÿ Their location was roughly 50 feet east and 40 feet south of the center corner we had found by following their references quite successfully.?ÿ No doubt but what that was the monument they had found in that exact location but horribly off in their survey.?ÿ Called them.?ÿ Explained what we had done and why we believed?ÿ something went wrong when they were out there.?ÿ Two days later, we received a call verifying that they had finally found how they had screwed the pooch.?ÿ Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling until I realized that someday, somewhere, I would be the one getting such a call.
You don't interpret Record/Measured numbers as placing measurements above monuments, do you? The example here is an awkward way of doing R/M.
I think record/measured is inherently less ambiguous because it is clear that the record and measured line both go to the same point. Any ambiguity is in the distance and the bearing between the two conrners, not in the identity of the corner. In this case it's not clear which point the given measurement (which is presumably the boundary line) is a measurement?ÿ to.?ÿ
It may be normal practice, but I think the evidence of confusion even among professionals exhibited in this thread is proof enough that this is not good practice.?ÿ
There are other places this is common too. I was quickly convinced that this was bad practice when I asked the first three surveyors that I saw do this what they ment. The first said, the found monunet is the corner. The second said its not his job to decide where the corner is, and the third did the corner is the calculated position. That was enough to convince me that my insticts were right.?ÿ
For the ourpose of clarifying to future readers that I am showing my measured line that (of course) results in a different number than record, which I show in parentheses, I add the following note:
?ÿ
"() denotes record data depicting the same line on the ground as retraced by this survey."
Very common in Western New York, hold the record dimensions and as many monuments that fit the records and show the other monuments off with directional ties.?ÿ Recorded surveys are few and far between and caps or tags are not required so, there is no pedigree to most of the found irons. If a measured bearing or distance is shown it will require a new description.?ÿ
Very common in Western New York, hold the record dimensions and as many monuments that fit the records and show the other monuments off with directional ties.?ÿ Recorded surveys are few and far between and caps or tags are not required so, there is no pedigree to most of the found irons. If a measured bearing or distance is shown it will require a new description.?ÿ
What a good argument for mandatory recording. Why are so many surveyors doing the absolute minimum. I would think we wouldn't have to be told by the goverment to put a few dollar cap on our monuments.?ÿ
