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- SIY4.TXT Locate a Point on the Earth from a Land Description 27
-
- Chapter 4
-
- Locate a Point on the Earth from a Land Description
-
- In this chapter you will relocate stations on the Earth from the land
- description. The method is the same as you used in Chapter 1, except that now
- you are plotting your map at full scale.
-
- For this chapter you will need:
-
- a) Silva Ranger type 15 compass, available for $41 + $5 shipping & handling
- from CAVE Inc, ½ Fast Road, Ritner, KY 42639. 606/376-3137.
-
- b) Your previous survey data,
-
- c) Your previous survey location.
-
- You will not need:
-
- a) Tape measure, altho when you do, a 200 foot Keson fiberglass surveyor's
- tape measure is available for $27 + $5 shipping & handling from CAVE Inc, ½
- Fast Road, Ritner, KY 42639. 606/376-3137.
-
- b) Clinometer,
-
- c) Calculator,
-
- d) Assistant.
-
- e) You don't even need this computer, except to make a printout so that these
- instructions can be doodled with a pencil.
-
- This step is a bit trickier to learn. You will have the bad tendency to cheat
- on yourself. You will change the compass sighting or your pace length a little
- bit so that you will come out right on your previous station. Try to pretend
- that you have never been there before.
-
- Return to the scene of Chapter 3. Find your beginning station. You should
- remember where it is. Could a naive surveyor find it? To find station 1,
- follow the instructions in your land description. TO 1, FROM 0, set the
- compass for the number of degrees which you have recorded for COMPASS. Sight
- off in that direction, just like you were taking a compass direction. Your
- station is somewhere along that line.
-
- The distance along that line is however far you have written in the land
- description under TAPE, or PACE if you prefer. Measure off that distance along
- the compass direction.
-
- SIY4.TXT Locate a Point on the Earth from a Land Description 28
-
- You are now at station 1, within the error of the method. If you are exactly
- where station 1 was the last time, then you are either cheating or you are
- exceedingly lucky. And don't cheat by moving the station.
-
- Once you have set station 1, use the same method to set station 2. This is so
- easy that if you can do it twice, you can do it forever. I hope that you are
- not disappointed to find that there is no magic is surveying. Finish setting
- the stations which you have in your land description. Try not to cheat. You
- need to get a intuitive feel for error. The way to do this is to make lots of
- errors in a place where they can be caught and measured.
-
- Your closure error should be less than 2 paces (or feet) plus 5% of the RUN.
- Run is how far you have surveyed around the loop which you are closing.
-
- If you have an assistant who is into playing this sort of game, you can give
- each other land descriptions to follow. You could even have a treasure hunt
- with an appropriate buried treasure at station 19.
-
- You can survey the same way with the land description in a deed or whatever.
- You will need to locate on the real Earth a corner described in the deed. It
- need not be the beginning corner used by the previous surveyor, only an
- identifiable corner. If you can't identify any corners, see Chapter 11 for
- instructions to try to find lost corners.
-
- Plot out a map first so that you know what you are doing. Tabulate the land
- description into the standard format. Do this at home where you can think
- about it when you get confused. You can see that you could start at any corner
- and go in either direction. Use the map to keep track of what you are doing.
-
- If you have a map or plat, but not the land description, measure the directions
- and distances from the map. You may have to draw some more north-south lines
- to use with the black meridian lines inside of the compass dial. Don't mark on
- an original document, photocopy it. WARNING: some copiers make distorted
- copies. Check your copy against the original.
-
- Most of the survey error comes from the compass. A one degree error in the
- compass reading produces an error of 1.7% of the tape distance at the location
- of the station. You can get a good feel for this by setting two stations next
- to each other and taking compass directions to them from another station. It
- might be more convenient to do this on a piece of paper rather than in the city
- park. Just do it somewhere to prove it to yourself.
-
- Take some good advice from an analytical chemist. Know where you must be
- careful (compass) and where you may just as well be fast and sloppy (tape). If
- you are reading the direction to one degree, then it is irrelevant to read the
- tape to a hundredth of a foot.
-
- This is the basic method of surveying, the ability to work in the three
- languages of map, land description, and the real Earth. All the rest is just a
- refinement of this basic method. If you have questions or problems, contact me.
-