California Surveyors Forums

Pat:

I used to fall into this trap, too. I have a license and some expensive equi-pment that i know how to use. I measure better than anyone else on the planet and I know what I'm doing. The guy back in '74 just screwed up. I can fix all this and make it perfect again.

The only problem is that I am screwing around with peole's property and their perceptions of what they own.

I used to be the kind of surveyor that Cooley spoke of with distain: the surveyor who struck terror in the hearts of property owners when i set up my instrument.

Fortunately, I didn't do a great deal of damage. Some wonderful surveyors gently nudged me in the direction of boundary surveying rather than mathematical surveying.

My advice: look carefullly to the status quo and find ways to reconsille it with the math. Prepare the RS and tell future surveyors why the mathematical solution doesn't work in this case. Leave them suggestions as to how to procede in future. Tell them how to prorate to maintain the Cooley wrote of harmony. With good notes and commentary on your maps, you'll really be doing the area a service, leaving good footsteps for the future surveyor, limiting your own liability and...most importantly...practicing the ART of boundary surveying!

Ian

I want to reiterate what Ian said:

"With good notes and commentary on your maps...."

Although our job is to strictly lay out the deed and not make judgements contrary to it, occasionally there are situations where the evidence points to an error or mistake by the original or following surveyors. There is little as comforting as a paragraph or two on the face of the map explaining why the surveyor accepted or rejected a particular monument or used an different procedure for establishment. It makes it soooooooo much easier for the next guy or gal to figure out what you were thinking and much more likely that they'll come to the same conclusion.

One reason for proportioning is to reproduce the length of the original surveyors tape so as to follow their footsteps on the ground. It is good to know that you know your distance measuring instrument is not only accurate but precise when compared to the Bureau of Standards; however, many of the old surveys did not have the benefit of knowing the precise standard. Therefore, we must respect their standard if we are to find ourselves in the same place as they were.

Remember what A.C. Mulford said in 1908, "when it comes to a question of stability of property and the peace of the community, it is far more important to have a somewhat faulty measurement of the spot where the line truly exists than it is to have an extremely accurate measurement of the place where it does not exist at all.”