Knowing what you know now, but only having the tools available at the time, if you had been in charge of the PLSS from its beginning, what would you have done differently?
I think I would have it much like the later versions of it, but would have had baselines as parallels of latitude every 24 miles extending continuously from the eastern beginnings to the Rockies. An astronomical measurement every 24 miles would keep them reasonably accurate. Principle meridians as we know them would be unnecessary, being replaced by a guide meridian 24 miles long every 24 miles on the baseline.
I might have made some rule of thumb as to when the terrain did not suit "square" sections and allowed gov't lots to be created according to that terrain. If you come up to the foot of a mountain range, there is no point in trying to make squares over it and ending up with 42 odd-shaped "sections" like one famous county. A line from a marker at an approximate bearing to a mountain peak makes a better division.
Or I might have done it in metric, as was one of the proposals at the time. By now everybody would have become comfortable with it.
Your ideas?
I would've set all of the damned monuments 😉
I'm looking at some 1868 notes in rough timberland today, only marked small trees (Oaks, probably short lived tan oaks and young growth redwood if you are lucky and madrone). No bearing trees AARRRRRGH!!! Must've been in a hurry.
It really should be called the PLTS (public land title system) because that is really what it is, a way to dispose of land quickly and cheaply with simple descriptions.
Originally they were only going to set corners every half mile on the township boundaries! Thank gawd that didn't fly. Imagine the multiple corner chaos we would have if they had done that, every interior section, quarter and sixteenth corner subject to continual movement to a "better" position.
> I would've set all of the damned monuments 😉
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and they would have been far-icken substantial- fir post - charred stake- pphhffffttttt!
I would have disposed of the land one parcel at a time by sequential conveyances with metes and bounds descriptions. 😛
I actually think it's conceptually sound. I think the execution was so vast with the rudimentary tools and logistics they had, mediocrity prevailed.
If we were tasked with today's equipment using the same instructions it would turn out a lot better. Just think if every township boundary had a very precise geodetic location. The recordation nowadays could be wonderful also.
Would it eliminate differing retracements and re-surveys? Probably not. No matter how you skin the cat, it still boils down to "where was the monument originally placed?"
> I actually think it's conceptually sound.
I agree.
The concept is fine. The implementation and initial field work were probably good in most areas but the program should have addressed maintenance for all corners. Had maintenance been recognized in the beginning as a very important aspect of the PLSS, we would probably have far fewer problems... no double corners, good monuments, verified bearings and distances between corners etc. Wouldn't that be nice?!
YEAH!!!!!! Metes & Bounds forever. :good:
> If we were tasked with today's equipment using the same instructions it would turn out a lot better. Just think if every township boundary had a very precise geodetic location. The recordation nowadays could be wonderful also.
New PLSS surveys are being done every day, in Alaska:-D
I would have required the international foot as the standard.
Except that the International foot didn't exist until 1959 or 1960, after a majority of the PLSS was done. Not that it makes a significant difference for land surveys - 2 ppm or 0.01 ft per mile is negligible. Even nowadays, most people (except John Hamilton and the NGS 🙂 ) don't set their temperature/pressure corrections that accurately.
For State Plane Coordinates the difference is important because of the huge distances from the point of origin. SPC had been defined for most if not all states before the International Foot was defined. It would have been nice if all states went with it in the NAD83 versions of SPC.
> I would've set all of the damned monuments 😉
Not underpaid contract surveys. There should have been a way to make them do adequate jobs that required adequate closures and a way to check them. Don't do it right, don't get paid.
I agree about the mountains as well. All bets were off when they hit the mountains....and metes and bounds would along rivers and other notable features would have fit the terrain and the sensibilities better. (I own from that creek up to the top of that hill.) In the plains east/west and north/south roads make sense, and land ownership in square miles or fractions, for farming and townsite purposes, etc.
If you've surveyed in the mountains, you find that running a straight line is extremely difficult, and towns seems to follow the terrain and ties to section corners are shaky at best and downright wrong many times.
I would be dead and gone by now
What if you had designed the PLSS?
Duh!!!!! I would have died many, many years ago and would have missed out on all the fun here with all of you guys and gals.
I would have added language that the founding fathers took for granted because it was so obvious:
"To place the center 1/4 in the field, run a line with whatever measuring tools are in use by surveyors from opposite 1/4 corners, then set a monument at the intersection. The line as run on the ground, and the monument set by local surveyors when waived by the Federal government prevails over some future surveyor's theoretical logic and perfect calculations using tools we can not dream of having available when we wrote these instructions. Property lines as contemplated by this PLSS do not lie in each and every new surveyor's head. Property corners as contemplated by this PLSS lie where a qualified government or local surveyor places the monument in the ground. There is no part of these instructions that require future surveyors to invent reasons for discarding and nullifying perfectly good property corner monuments set by qualified surveyors in good faith. The center 1/4 corner is a 1/4 corner like all 1/4 corners: There is no regulation or objective that requires a center 1/4 corner to be mathematically perfect because like all 1/4 corners, it is fundamentally understood that there is no way for surveyors to place perfect measurements on the ground in such a huge undertaking. Center 1/4 corners are expected to be imperfect as measured on the ground, just like all 1/4 corners."
This is the one little bit I would add in an excellent system, often confused by future surveyors.
ww CO PLS
- Have a nice day! Or, may your monument prevail over some guy's touchscreen.
:good: :good: :good: :good: :good: :good:
[sarcasm]Yes that would be heeded by Surveyors.[/sarcasm]
“When a man has had a training in one of the exact sciences, where every problem within its purview is supposed to be susceptible of accurate solution, he is likely to be not a little impatient when he is told that, under some circumstances, he must recognize inaccuracies, and govern his action by facts which lead him away from the results which theoretically he ought to reach. Observation warrants us in saying that this remark may frequently be made of surveyors.” -Justice Cooley
Excerpt From: Michael J. Pallamary, PLS. “The Curt Brown Chronicles.” AuthorHouse, 2011-03-09T05:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
I don't know Warren, if we tweak it long enough and hard enough the Earth will eventually reform into a perfect cube. What would be better than that? Everybody knows the physical is going to be forced into the shape of the paper! It says so in the deed and has been programmed into the computer.
> I don't know Warren, if we tweak it long enough and hard enough the Earth will eventually be reform into a perfect cube.
An old party chief once told me the reason all those little hash marks are on the transit circle was to "address the constant and glaring inaccuracies of the original survey".
I would have added a note to the Manual that said, "Honor local monuments and occupation when possible. Don't construe this Manual as anything other than a general guide to the original establishment of monumentation. And Children, honor the original center of section and sixteenth corner that is relied upon by adjacent landowners when possible. Ye who set monuments adjacent to existing monuments are a curse upon this very common sense system of division and ownership of land."
Dominion Land Survey System
> Knowing what you know now, but only having the tools available at the time, if you had been in charge of the PLSS from its beginning, what would you have done differently?
I'm a bit surprised that no one has given the obvious answer, which is to have waited to see what the Canadians did. The Dominion Land Survey System is in nearly all respects an improvement upon the realization of the US PLSS that the Canadians had the opportunity to observe. They waited and improved. We (meaning: the folks in PLSSia, not in Texas) didn't.
While the language is not that explicit, it already says that...
