2014 Issue

68 The quarter corners on the east/west lines were a bit more challenging. A correction line was run and lots created during the original survey along the east boundary of the township. Having located the section corners on the west and the closing corners along the east range line I expected it to be simple - but it wasn’t. After a couple of unsuccessful searches I finally determined the key was the quarter corners were south and a bit short of the proportioned re- corded distances. It mademe wonder if the corners were stubbed out, but I could not explain the closing corners I found. Then I experiencedmy first major disappointment; I was not able to get back for a second look before the dozers rolled through. The cor- ner might have survived for there was an old fence that was not dozed and my updated search indicates the corner was most likely in the fence line buried in the sediment of a flat part of the wash. So at that point I felt pretty successful in retracing the Fitzhugh’s survey. I had been working weekends, while the dozer op- erators took time off and I was getting far enough ahead to feel less stressed. After locating some BLM dependent re- survey markers which was relatively easy because the GCDB coordinates were right on, it was time to move into Range 4 East but fromprevious experiences, I suspected my luck was going to change. Townships 12 and 13 South were subdivided in about 1872 by Deputy Surveyor A. D. Ferron and my experience told me Ferron did what he said he did. However, my experience also told me Ferron did not build large mounds but usually marked the stones pretty well. The big problem is an approximate 5 chain bust along both the north and south boundaries of T13S, R4E, SLM. In this area the GCDB and the quad maps are mostly based upon record information and there- fore data from the GCDB is limited or is of no practical use. The bust along the south boundary of this township is in the westerly 120 chains and the record indicates there are about 5 chains more than there actually is. I think the bust is in the last 1-1/2mile but haven’t yet been able to find the corners to pinpoint it. The bust in the northerly township line is in the mile between sec- PLSS CORNERS | continued from page 67 tions 33 and 4. This line is about 5 chains shorter than the record, causing the last half mile to be about the record 47.25 chains. Although the record indicates the township is about 5 to 7 chains extra wide it’s actu- ally about normal because of these busts. Expect poor results when poor data is put through a least squares adjustment. The whole township is warped which can only be corrected by seeding some good hard data points throughout the blunder area. Thus far, only a few hard points (geodetic corner records) in the township have made it into the GCDB. I checked a few points and found the corners in the west side of the township were about 250 feet off from the GCDB coordinates. So I turned to the Quad maps, knowing there were a few corners indicated as found on theQuadmap. With coordinates picked off the Quad map I went hunting. This pro- cess actually worked pretty well and I found a few corners, shot themwithGPS and used the values to further refine my search. This information, along with a few geodetic corner records filed by other surveyors in T12S and the northwest portion of T13S, enabled me to locate and flag most of the corners in this portion of the chaining area. However, there were a few locations that just wouldn’t give up the corners. My favor- ite find was an old fence corner where long ago farmers had left lots of rocks from land clearing, which I had previously searched for. It was shown as found on theQuadmap and another surveyor had left a bar with tag and filed a geodetic corner record. The fire had burnt the fence corner post into the ground. I dusted and dug into the sides of the hole and found a nice marked stone lying right next to the post hole, the top of which would have been below ground before the fire. That made my day! Continuing south along the west side of T13S, my luck all but ran out. I just couldn’t find evidence of the north/south line for the east side of the west tier of sections. How- ever, using the Quad map search method I did find the corner common to sections 7-8/18-17. Having found the range line corner previously, I measured a distance of 5,268 feet and compared it to the record distance of 87.20 chains. The north side of Section 6 record distance is 87.25 chains. If 7.25 chains is subtracted from 87.20 chains and divided into 5,268 feet, the average chain length is about 65.9 feet. Maybe the deputy had figured out there was an issue and was adjusting the record to make it work out? Onmy third search attempt, the quarter cor- ner common to sections 19/30 was found by walking back and forth at different offsets to the predicted line. The stone was a nicely marked orange quartz stone with a mound of two other rocks in a sagebrush flat that hadn’t burned; but the stone’s location was about 250 feet from the GCDB point and as shown on theQuadmap. Same situation as before - the record is 5-6 chains longer than the measured distance to the range line. Even with the additional data, I was unable to locate a couple of needed corners on the line. However, a tall mound of stone on the very top of a very remote ridge was found a couple of chains north of my pre- dicted location for the corner to Sections 30-29/31-32. I suspected this was used to set a sighting flag while the line was being run. Two separate days and considerable time was spent searching for this corner, which was literally located in a sea of all blackened rocks. Unfortunately, I was unable to find this corner and finally just flagged out an island and hoped the corner is in it. I’m now nearing the end of the chaining project in the northwest portion of T14S, R4E, SLM, subdivided by Deputy Surveyor John Breckon in 1891. My experiences in this area, along with a few geodetic corner records that have been filed, suggest that good stones withmounds should be found. An interesting feature of the Breckon survey is he retraced the north boundary of T14S, reported a couple cornersmissing, which he replaced, and then reported the exact same distances as Deputy Ferron had twenty years prior. Maybe he found the blunder and didn’t want to change the record but Breckon’s subdivision of the township doesn’t show the extra 5 chain lengths run- ning into the range line along the westerly tier of sections. There are some fairly large fallings and hard angles run back from the northern township line, so I believe Breckon