Currmudgeon
Gold Member
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( it was comical to see the antics that the surveyor was going through to 'find' the section line )</font>
There is a reason for this. The old section surveys were rife with errors, some worse than others. In its wisdom, the law was written that, to avoid future adjustments, the correct section corner was where it was actually monumented, even if it was tens of feet from its mathematical position. So when using a section corner as a reference, it is important to find the actual, physical corner, not calculate where it oughta be.
I've seen all kinds of errors in surveys, particularly historic ones. They were done with cruder instruments than we have today, and calculated by hand. One of the most common old errors is the dropped chain. The actual length would be a chain (66 feet) or more rarely a hundred feet longer than recorded. The chainman simply screwed up the count.
The computer has eliminated most of the math errors, and achieving a good closure is a check on the accuracy of a survey.
But beyond that, it becomes an issue of finding and accommodating the original errors. Depending on the situation, they must be corrected or incorporated into your survey. My former property had a bad corner. The length of the block did not equal the sum of the individual lots. The error had to be distributed between the various lots. It caused an off and on again four-inch argument with various neighbors, and resulted in a maze of cross-cuts in the sidewalk where various surveyors interpreted the corner location.
There is a reason for this. The old section surveys were rife with errors, some worse than others. In its wisdom, the law was written that, to avoid future adjustments, the correct section corner was where it was actually monumented, even if it was tens of feet from its mathematical position. So when using a section corner as a reference, it is important to find the actual, physical corner, not calculate where it oughta be.
I've seen all kinds of errors in surveys, particularly historic ones. They were done with cruder instruments than we have today, and calculated by hand. One of the most common old errors is the dropped chain. The actual length would be a chain (66 feet) or more rarely a hundred feet longer than recorded. The chainman simply screwed up the count.
The computer has eliminated most of the math errors, and achieving a good closure is a check on the accuracy of a survey.
But beyond that, it becomes an issue of finding and accommodating the original errors. Depending on the situation, they must be corrected or incorporated into your survey. My former property had a bad corner. The length of the block did not equal the sum of the individual lots. The error had to be distributed between the various lots. It caused an off and on again four-inch argument with various neighbors, and resulted in a maze of cross-cuts in the sidewalk where various surveyors interpreted the corner location.
