year or two ago, I decided to specialize in my benchmark hunting. Until then I was assiduously finding every NGS mark in my home area (New York City) and then for a good part of the 3 seasons (= not Winter) I'd find time to head to New England for some hiking and mountain climbing. Some of thse treks took me to the Canadian boundary or across state boundary lines. So while I was at it, I would log such survey markers that I might find on a mountain top, or such boundary monuments that I should find on GC and NGS - that is if the markers of monuments happened to be in the databases — which was not always the case.
Then I thought, why not specialize and combine, and spend what free time I had for my several hobbies on hikes and climbs specifically planned to find the maximum number of interesting markers on my treks. So instead of Peakbagging at times, and benchmark hunting at times (with the occasional overlap) I would do Peak-benchmark bagging. As I told the on-line hiking group I belong to, instead of chasing another peak list (I had already done the popular ones) I would pursue "Bugs, Benchmarks and Boundaries" (the bugs come gratis :laughing:)
Then in the summer of last year, as I was planning a trip to Maine and New Brunswick as a vacation with my wife, I read Holograph's excellent Wiki on the Eastern Oblique Arc, EOA for short. This described the monumental project done by the Coast Survey from about 1830 to about 1900 which surveyed the entire East Coast to an unprecedented level of accuracy. And in so doing, helped establish the "Figure of the Earth" (the exact shape of the earth's spheroid in North America) which laid the foundations of modern datums. Pretty great stuff, of which I was totally ignorant until then.
Here's Holograph's Wiki: .
And ... (drum role) ... many of the survey markers from the 1830s to the 18570s and beyond are still sitting there, waiting for someone to find them. So I obliged.
This is the fifth of a series of my reports on this forum of the progress of this quest along the EOA. Some of you may recall the earlier threads, but I've linked them here in case you want to go back and check them out. They basically outline my recoveries, and non-recoveries with background material, maps and photos included.
ut most simply, when you do a triangulation, you set up your stations (usually on mountain tops) and measure angles to other stations. Then you determine the accuracy (basically you do each measurement many times and take averages and determine average errors) and solve the triangles using the rules of geometry (remember from high school, the sum of the 3 angles of a triangle is 180 degrees), Then after taking into account the curved surface of the earth and other errors, you end up with a series on interconnected triangles which span the area of your survey. This was a lot of computation in pre-computer days and sometimes took months or years. But there are two things missing: the orientation of the triangles (which way is north) and the scale (how big are the triangles.
Careful observations of the north star and other astronomical observations gets your the first, but for the second (how big are the triangles) you need to physically measure the exact length of a side of one or more triangles, and thus set the scale for the whole survey.
This was easier said than done. The longest they could hope to measure a line was about 5 or 6 miles. Since many of the triangles had sides that were sometimes 50 or 60 miles long (look at the map at the top of the thread - the line from Mt Desert to Cooper is about 92.87 kilometers = 57.70 miles, and the longest line in New England, Mount Pleasant to Ragged Mountain (Maine) is 135.16 kilometers = 83.98 miles!), any small measurement error would get multiplied by a huge factor. So they measured the "Baseline" (as it was called) carefully. And I mean very, very carefully. They used metal bars, in this case 6 meters long and aligned them along a carefully laid out route. They compensated for temperature and inclination and height above sea level. When they could, they used a straight stretch of a railroad (as was done in Massachusetts) , or along a beach (as was done in Long Island, NY). But as we know, in Maine there are no beaches and the railroads don't go straight , so they found an area that was long and relatively flat. The blueberry barrens of Cherryfield, Maine (the "Blueberry capitol of the world"; so says the sign) fit the bill and that was where they laid out the line. The area was known as the Epping Plains or the Epping Blueberry Barrens and hence the name of the baseline. The distance was measured over 8 days in July 1857, and the accuracy of the 5.4 mile line was calculated to be on the order of 1 part in 500,000. The final corrected measurement from 1857 was 8715.9422 m with a probable error of 0.0158 m. Recent GPS measurements actually confirm this impressive accuracy.
The "Base Net" is the system of stations around the base Line (Tunk, Burke and Pigeon) which serve to bridge the gap between the relatively short base line and the primary triangulation, which tends to have very long lines. The mathematics was simplified by using this intermediate step. Due to the limted resources for computations, it would be impossible to simply solve the many equations for the primary network plus the base line. So they first solved the equations for the base net (56 equations - using 10 place logarithms), and then considered the quadrilateral surrounding the base net (Cooper-Howard-Mt Desert-Humpback) as fixed, and used it to set the scale for the rest of the primary net in the area. Then of course they had to match that up with the next section which had it's own baseline (Massachusetts), and on and on. The calculations involved which would probably take the average PC minutes (assuming you had lots of memory) took literally years when done manually.
'll divide the recoveries into two groups: the outer 4 stations, which interconnect to the rest of the EOA both to the northeast and southwest, and the inner 5 stations which includes the ends of the base line and the 3 nearby peaks. Besides, I found (or in the case of Howard couldn't get to) the outer stations a while back (2 last year, and 1 back in September) and I found the 5 inner station all on one busy day a couple of weeks ago.
The first 3 stations were visited in September of 2007 during a vacation trip my wife and I took to Maine and New Brunswick. The 4th (Humpback) was visited this September when my daughter and I went up to climb Katahdin and stopped off on the way up to climb Lead Mountain (formerly known as Humpback) in Hancock County.
Links:
The domes have been gone for years and there is now a newer dome of some sort on the hill (but not at the station's location) so I went there with hopes of miraculously finding the old copper bolt amid the crumbling concrete of the old radar dome, but alas, the site is now used for some sort of low security prison and there was no one around to ask permission to go wandering around. If I had some reasonable chance of finding something, I would consider going back, making the requisite phone calls and see what I could find.
Links:
So we drove from Rye back to Route 1 and went down Maine Route 191 about 10 miles to Cooper Hill. My DeLorme gazetteer showed a short dirt road up the hill labeled "Tower Road". Sounded good. When we got there, we found Tower Road was easily drivable and when I pulled in next to the lookout tower I could actually see the mark without getting out of the car! What a contrast: Howard out of bounds and Rye with .6 miles of brambles and no mark; Cooper was a drive up with the mark literally jumping out to greet you. Cooper is what as known in the trade as a "Gimme".
One slip up: I searched in vain for the two reference marks. The distances from the station were given on the datasheet, but no bearings or directions. It wasn't till later that I realized that Cooper RM1 had it's own PID with directions, accurate latitude and longitude, everything (including directions to find RM2)! And I had actually printed out that datasheet but neglected to look at it when I was up there! Duh!
Here's a couple of shots of this successful recovery:
Links:
Of special interest is the fact that for 3 summers )1931, 1932, and 1933), an unidentified surveyor for the Maine Geodetic Survey, working with only a 6 inch transit put all of us with our Google Maps and GPSes and our Geocaching site and our NGS datasheets to shame. Read on ...
It was the Great Depression; Arcadia National Park, created 15 years earlier (mostly from the largess of the Rockerfellers and other wealthy families who had summer estates on the island) was seeing the benefits of the WPA; the auto road to the summit of Cadillac Mountain would be completed in October; and this surveyor came to investigate the old survey marker on Mount Desert Island.
Perhaps due to a dearth of new undertakings in that economically depressed time, he spent 3 summers on this mountain searching out and measuring as many of the long forgotten drill holes as possible, finding all but one of them - all this to verify that the one central hole was the station from 1856. We can imagine the summit in these pre-tourist, pre-auto road days as a barren place of rock ledges, lichen, moss and brush, visited only by the occasional hiker. What he did boggles the mind, especially in light of today's overworked, understaffed situation. Here are exerpts from the logs from the 1930s when this station was rediscovered, remarked and verified:
I'll finish this up not with a photo of the station disk (it's like thoudands of others and besides, you can read the log if you really want to see it), but something much better which my wife and I had the privilege of seeing shortly after ...
Links:
The top of the mountain has the foundations of an old fire tower with a USGS disk underneath (which is station HUMPBACK). Our station is about 100 yards to the south - where the views are better. So this modest hike will get you a "twofer", one of which is just 150 years old this year.
From 1913 to 1932, the station was thought to be a 1 1/2 inch drill hole. Finally in 1932, a surveyor from the Maine Geodetic Survey did some measuring and checking and decided that they had found the wrong drill hole, and he found another one that matched up with the range holes. Could it be that it was the same surveyor who did all the work finding holes on Cadillac Mountain over 3 summers. I'll bet it was.
This was verified in 1934 by one KGC of the CGS, and he identifies the MGS surveyor as "H.S. SHAW". I quote from the 1934 log:
Thank you Mr. Shaw for your work in discovering the truth both here and at Mount Desert! Here's a few photos. Sorry there were no views.
The two reference marks were also found. Interestingly, one of them was set in a range hole to station Pigeon, which station I found on my latest trip, just 3 weeks ago.
he 5 stations in this group were of the Base Line itself and the 3 stations nearby. And 4 out of 5 (all except Burke) were original copper bolts from the 1850s! I was able to visit all 5 in one afternoon starting at Tunk where I arrived at 11:00 AM (after a 5½ drive from the Boston area) and finishing with West Base at about 5:30, just when it was getting dark. It was what is known as a looooong day!
Here's that Google Map again (in case you haven't memorized it by now :laughing: ):
Links:
The station is easy to miss. It's just past a small communications shed recently built on the summit (the station is about 8 feet from the east corner of the shed). There is a reference mark on the same ledge about 5' 6" south of the mark and the other reference mark is on the next ledge, about 90' away. This second ledge is actually the highest point of the mountain.
Views from the summit are spectacular. Pick a clear day to go.
Links:
Links:
And such a top of the hill! Views up and down the coast for miles. The end of the neck of land is a National Wildlife refuge and most of the islands and bays are undeveloped or have small fishing villages. The way life ought to be! Then I heard something wonderful from someone from the area: a local preservation group, the Great Auk Land Trust, has already purchased 117 acres of the area including the summit, and 51 additional acres have been made available for purchase - including more of the summit and an area encompassing the traditional trail on the east side (this is the route from the old cemetary mentioned in the 1913 NGS log). The area is now the "Pigeon Hill Vista & Recreational Preserve". Great news! Now you don't have to rush down there to get this mark.
Links:
The cool thing about the two ends of the base line is that they were surveyed with high accuracy GPS and the east end is now a "Federal Base Network Control Station" with a location accuracy of about half a centimeter. This category denotes the highest level of accuracy in the system.
The directions given in the most recent NGS log are right on and you can drive right to the marker which is a few feet off the side of the dirt road. The station is a copper bolt set in the center of a 3' x 3' dressed granite block. Originally there were marble monuments mounted above the copper bolts on both ends of the line, but they are long gone (and I believe at least one of them is in a museum).
Left: The granite block in front of a snowmobile direction sign.
Right: Closeup of the block.
Left: Vintage photo of the original base line (from CGS S.P. 7 – 1902)
Right: Looking west along what remains of the base line today
Links:
This station is "almost" a drive up. Simply take a right on Base Line Road from Route 193 about 7 miles north of the intersection with US Route 1 in Cherryfield. The drive to the height of land (about .9 miles) and take the path on the rithe through a forested area and over some ledges to the station. There are some reference markers on the ledges but with darkness falling I had no time to look for them. The station is a copper bolt (a bit banged up) in the center of a 3' x 3' flat area carded in the side of the ledge. I had no problem whatsoever in finding the station, although the vegetation must have grown since the GPS measurements were made, since the marker was not open to the sky.
Notice in the second picture some cement along the back edge of the ledge rock. This is evidently a remnant of the attempt in 1964 to remount the original marble monument. They eventually gave up, and the monument was moved to a museum.
Vintage photo of the measurement apparatus in 1857. The terrain in this photo is much like it is today.
In a little over a year I've made 5 trips to search for stations on the EOA. Of course I searched for numerous other stations on those same trips.
Here's the summary by state:
Connecticut ... 5 stations, 5 not visited
Rhode Island .. 1 station, 1 found
Massachusetts . 9 stations, 5 found, 1 destroyed, 1 DNF, 2 lost, not visited
New Hampshire . 4 stations, 2 found, 1 DNF, 1 not visited
Maine ........ 20 stations, 14 found, 2 destroyed, 2 DNF, 2 lost, not visited
Canada ........ 3 stations, 1 found, 2 not visited (1 lost)
Totals ....... 42 stations, 23 found, 3 destroyed, 4 DNF, 12 not visited
Here's a map of the whole section. Pushpins: Green = found, Red = DNF or destroyed, grey = not visited.
Let's look at the list and see what we have:
Not visited: 12 stations.
Blue Hill (MA) is under a concrete flag pole base :sad: . Unkonoonuc (NH) is a drill hole in bedrock about 8 inches underground. I searched for about an hour but it may still be there. I may go back. Sebattus (ME) has a building built over it :rolleyes: . I think it may still exist since the building has no foundation. Rye (ME) is probably there. I just have to go back and look some more in the thorn bushes and poison ivy. [Note: I went back and found Rye the next year (8/3/2009). See .]
Blue Hill and Sebattus were my biggest disappointments. Knowing that these two original marks (Blue Hill from 1845, Sebattus from 1853) had survived intact for so long, only to have someone plonk something down on top of them in the last few years (probably without even knowing what was there), kills me. Ah well, hopefully in some future year these structures will crumble or be removed, and some future benchmark hunter will find these long lost markers.
Destroyed: 3 stations.
Wachusett (MA) was moved during the construction of a hotel on the summit in 1895 and became Wachusett 2. Independence (ME) was destroyed
by the Maine DOT in 1970. Calais Observatory (ME) was on a granite post which is known to have been removed.
But the original 1833 Wachusett copper bolt survives (this was a Borden station), even though its geodetic position is lost. It was moved twice (first by construction of a hotel in 1895, and then it was hit by a car in 1936), so it became "Wachusett 2", then "Wachusett 2 Reset". It's current position is thought to be about 1 foot from the original position.
Founds: 23 stations
Of the 23 stations, 8 (Beaconpole, Copecut, Agamenticus, Mt Blue, Harris, Mount Desert, Humpback and Burke) are resets, meaning the original drill hole or copper bolt was replaced by a disk at the same location. That means that for 15 stations, the original drill hole or bolt was found. After 150 to 170 years that's pretty darned good! :)
A note on Mt Pleasant: the station was established in 1853, but soon thereafter a hotel was built on the summit which cut off the line of site to Mt Blue, another primary station. So a new mark was established about 17 meters from the old station. Both of these stations were believed to have been used in the original surveys. The new mark probably should have been designated as an eccentric, but instead it was named "Mt Pleasant New" and has it's own PID. See PF1145 for the old and PF1147 for the new station. Both are first order stations. After two trips to the summit, I found them both. The New station is now just a drill hole; its copper bolt is gone.
So what's with beaconpole (the first reset above)? Beaconpole may look more like a bolt, but it is actually the center portion of a disk which has been chipped away. The triangle with the dot in it are intact, so it's still what I would call in "good condition", at least from a surveyors standpoint.
Th-th-that's all folks!
CallawayMT replied on on 10 November 2008 - 06:50 PM
Your dedication, documentation and research puts many surveyors to shame.
Another well documented and very historical project.
Thanks for sharing
.
Kurt
pgrig replied on on 11 November 2008 - 06:13 AM
PGrig
This week I spent as much time writing this report as I spent in Maine the week before last. :)
NGS Surveyor replied on on 12 November 2008 - 10:07 AM
GeorgeL
NGS
P.S. Are you going to do the entire EOA?
AZcachemeister replied on on 12 November 2008 - 07:32 PM
Difficult Run replied on on 12 November 2008 - 07:40 PM
First of all, I'd like to echo the sentiments of everyone else here...
Awesome!
Secondly, I'd propose that we make this a geocaching group effort to recover as many of these stations as possible. (We'll leave the grand narrative to PapaBear, ok?)
One station of particular interest of mine is High Knob 1865. (A possible Eastern Oblique Arc Station). It was last recovered in 1884. Three search parties attempted to locate the station in 1957 without success. However, they set a new mark (High Knob 2) 11.665 ft northeast of the original. So if I find the 1957 station, I have a good chance to locate the 1865 mark.
Access to this station is protected by a gated community, which owns the entire north face of the mountain. I made contact with the homeowner's association and was given permission to search the area. They're very interested in the history behind this mark, as it would make a fine article for their monthly newsletter. Unfortunately I arrived unprepared, (thinking this would be an easy find), clad in shorts and facing a dense foliage consisting of mostly briars. I'll be making another attempt on the next warm day.
Is there enough interest in the group to extend PapaBear's work to the Gulf of Mexico?
~ Mitch ~
Papa-Bear-NYC replied on on 13 November 2008 - 08:03 AM
Several of you have asked me "Are you going to do the entire EOA?". I think not, but I will certainly go back and try to fill in the holes in the northeast. I'd like to get to the point where I either find every mark, or assure myself that it is gone or inaccessible.
I also expect to move down through Connecticut, New York and New Jersey and perhaps beyond - but not too far beyond. Once you get past Washington DC the trips get too long. Right now the trips are mighty long - my trip to Maine and NH a few weeks ago totaled close to 1400 miles (when you include round trip bus to the Boston area - the rest, about 1000 miles, was on a rental). That's for 5 marks in Maine and 3 in NH (of which 2 were DNFs). I am comfortable going after the "Few and far between" (clearly I'm not chasing every last mark along my route - that would have taken me 3 times as long), but there are limits. Would I fly to New Orleans to look for 15 markers, 14 of which are probably under water?
The idea that members of this group might be interested in some of these old historic markers in their own areas sounds good to me. If you live in a state on the Eastern Seaboard, why not volunteer to bag all the EOA stations in your state that are still there. To me that's more interesting than finding another 1959 bench mark on another county courthouse.
Harry Dolphin, if you want New Jersey, I'll cede it to you. :D You probably already have some of them.
Seventhings - I'm sure you could pick up a few in Pennsylvania and Delaware between finding Mason Dixon monuments. You and Harry would have to fight it out over southwest Jersey.
I'm glad Difficult Run is going after High Knob 1865. Sounds like a worthy quest. But Mitch, why not follow up by going after the other marks in Virginia? There's got to be many along the eastern range of the Appalachians that have survived. And the ones in the mountains are more likely to be original markers rather than 1930s resets.
And NGS Surveyor has taken aim on Turkey Point. So George, how about the other stations around the Chesapeake and over to D.C.? The Kent Island Base Line would attract me if I was from the area. Although Kent South Base is reported washed away in 1888, there might be some mile stones or other artifacts to find, plus the North Base is supposedly still there.
Anyone care to volunteer to take on a state? Sign up right here. Holograph's excellent site (The Eastern Oblique Arc) is a great place to start.
And then there's the Transcontinental Triangulation (39th patrallel) - a whole 'nother project.
Difficult Run replied on on 13 November 2008 - 11:19 PM
"Some of the stockade posts are still upright, many are prostrate and more have disappeared. Part of the signal tower or watch tower remains, but not in its original height. These signal towers... were built in the fashion of a [wooden] superstructure of an oil well... with a ladder reaching from platform to platform."
I'll go after some of these other stations in Virginia as time and weather permits.
~ Mitch ~
"Capt. Boutella" must be none other than Charles O. Boutelle, who was an assistant to Simeon Borden (Who did the Massachusetts survey in the 1830s) and then went on to work for Bache in the Coast Survey. Boutelle was the very man who laid out the Epping Base Line in 1856.
And Peach Graove is alive and well (see HV4830), reset with a disk in 1954. It looks like it may be behind a fence at this point in time. Perhaps a phone call or two will get you in there to do a recovery.
Keep up the good work. If I ever get down that neck of the woods I'll look you up.
Speaking of reading newspapers, I used to read the newspaper while sitting on the triangle boards at the top of a Bilby tower while waiting for the observer to call for my light!
GeorgeL
NGS
mloser replied on on 14 November 2008 - 03:45 PM
I always think an officially destroyed mark deserves at least a look. I've found a few occasionally that are marked destroyed when according to the log they probably aren't. Great Meadow 1836 comes to mind. Its buried under 4 - 6 feet of dirt. So? That doesn't make it destroyed. Just dig a hole 4 - 6 feet deep (slight complication - it's on a National Guard base :) ).
OTOH, a number stations I've looked into ARE destroyed but are not so marked. Wachusett is a good example. It got moved, they made Wachusett 2 from the same monument but forgot to declare the original destroyed. Of course that was in 1895 a little before they had the database up and running. :cute:
Papa,
I TOTALLY agree, especially in this instance since the marks are special. I am pretty sure YARD is destroyed--I have looked at it on aerial photos and the water tank described on the datasheet is huge and sits squarely on the spot the mark occupied. I have also driven by the area, but haven't approached the mark yet--it is surrounded by houses and a fence, so there is no easy access other than asking someone if I can cut through their yard (which I am willing to do, but haven't yet had the opportunity). I need to drive to WILLOW GROVE though and take a look to see what is up there. Hopefully the weekend after Thanksgiving will give me the chance when I take my daughter back to college in Phila.
I suspect that development has taken its toll. And I don't hit South Jersey very often, but I'd be interested in looking at the list.
Harry Dolphin replied on on 15 November 2008 - 09:40 AM
Hmm... Challenging!
Papa-Bear-NYC replied on on 19 November 2008 - 02:24 PM
It's not too much of a task. Basically I have to get all the data sheets for the stations, and then stick them into GSAK. I already do this for areas I have been traveling to. generally I can get a county into GSAK in about 5 minutes - I use Foxtrot Xray's data sheet -> GPX converter, plus a few GSAK macros I wrote for myself - so I've got the work flow pretty streamlined. The only additional "manual" step is putting in the data for the triangulation lines. One line of data per line (basically, a data line my map program reads which says draw a line THIS color from THIS point to THAT point) but even that is pretty easy. The rest of the stuff the map program needs is straight out of GSAK.
So my plan is to make a version that doesn't just document MY finds (or DNFs), but rather documents any of the GCers here who are working on the porject. For that matter, if someone on the site has found a mark recently quite aside from this discussion, I could document that as well. For example I'm sure and number of GC logs were made for Monadnock or Mount Desert, long before I got there. That way it can be a little like Holograph's reports on our recoveries, we can see our own progress plus any one else's progress. I could then throw a copy of the map up here from time to time as things progress. It might also encourage folks to go after an area with a lot of unvisited marks.
Sort of like this one from this thread:
I'd have to figure a way to make it easy to jump from one section to another, but that shouldn't be too big a deal. As it is you can drag and zoom, which is fine for local shifts, but it might be a little onerous to drag it all the way from Maine to Georgia.
In the long run it would be nice to have a map showing every station. And it would be either a green push pin (one of us found it) or yellow (still a DNF) or red (definitely gone forever).
So keep thinking what you can do, and before the snow hits the ground, get out there and track down a few of these.
NGS Surveyor replied on on 21 November 2008 - 12:02 PM
GeorgeL
NGS
Papa-Bear-NYC replied on on 24 November 2008 - 02:49 PM
And lastly I've added a feature to my custom Map to make it easy to jump to one section or another.
Here's the over all map as far as I've done so far:
Here's what happens if you bring up the map. It shows all the triangulation lines from Maine down to North Carolina. The measurement was originally done in sections which were separately adjusted, and scaled from the base lines. Then the sections were matched up as the survey progressed down the coast. I've divided things into the same sections as were done in the original survey.
You will notice 4 of the sections on the map have green lines. These are the "base nets" which means they have a base line measured on the ground and some surrounding stations which were adjusted as a unit, and then matched up to the adjoining sections.
You can enlarge any section, which will show all the stations and their "Found / Not Found / Destroyed" status, by either using the selector in the upper left, or by clicking on the map itself. Ten sections are done. There's about 8 or 10 more left to do.
Here's a sample:
Click for live map This is the exact same map you would get if you brought up the overall map and clicked on "Mid-Atlantic" in the selector (or if you clicked on the appropriate part of the map). It consists of 24 stations that stretch from the NY/Connecticut line down through northern New Jersey and then along the New Jersey/Pennsylvania line down to Delaware and Maryland.
BTW: I've tested the Google Maps on a bunch of different browsers. They all work fine but IE is noticeably slower on jumping to a new section of the map. Firefox, Chrome and Safari are all reasonably quick.
What you see is:
Here's what I'm going to do next when I get a little time.
When you visit Buttermilk, you can see the original 3" drill hole in ledge which was set in 1833 (since filled in with iron pipe in concrete). The monument at Springfield is a 1934 reset. I really don't think one could find any trace of the original earthenware cone, as it sounds like the reset included a sub-surface mark as well as the one found in 1999.
There are Lots of Resets out there, although most often they are disks set in original drill holes that at one time had a copper bolt. And when you come down to it, Buttermilk is also a Reset. The mark observed on is now a 3/4" iron rod with a punch hole which was first mentioned in the 1932 log (99 years after the station was set). The iron rod underwent various changes over the years - at first it stuck out 1 " and now it's flush.
And what would you think if the documentation stated that only the surface mark for Springfield was reset in 1934. The underground mark would be there but never seen. Or what if a disk had been set at Buttermilk which managed to cover the hole (I know - disks aren't that big, but follow the argument). Of course it's nice when you can see the original mark. Buttermilk is nice since there is no underground mark and the surface mark is not covered over, so everything is obvious.
Actually I'm on your side. We bagged Buttermilk, and it has a plaque. So we can say "The oldest First Order station (not including those set by Simeon Borden), whose original monument is still visible". ;) (see , a 1st order station set by Borden in 1832 with the original monument intact.)
Or maybe "The oldest First Order station with a plaque". Of course the plaque says "The oldest triangulation station in America" . That is clearly a stretch.
But still, finding an 1817 station which maintains the original geodetic position is pretty nifty. Go for it Harry! I'd be willing to split the prize money :)
Ah, yes. Digging on the side of the trail in the County Reservation. Hmmm... Dolphin and bear doing surveying with a tape measure? Measure from the RMs to the missing carsonite post, and the triple trunk tree, which is not a cherry, and from there to the station. Definitely a challenge. Might have to wait until spring, when the ground is not frozen. We shall see...
The mystery surrounding this station is finding RM 3. There is no description and a 30 minute search turned up nothing. I emailed DaveD to see if he had any documentation about it so I may have to return if he does.
Interesting history. In 1869 there is a rotted pole in the ground but no sign of the underground mark (a cone). It also seems the 1869 party had more data than we have. They searched for Chestnut trees which aren't mentioned in the brief log from 1839 that is on the data sheet and mention a displaced cone. And they used the word "scion" for young chestnut shoots sprouting from the old roots. I had never heard the word used that way.
Then in 1946 it's all lost. Then in 1983 it's in good condition with a disk set in 1978 but no log for 1978. Somewhere along the way it has become a GPS station (see the top of the data sheet) and then suddenly in 2005 it's destroyed - very weird.
Maybe DaveD can find the missing report from 1978, and the reason for marking it destroyed in 2005 - that would be more important for this mark's provenance than the missing RM.
And doesn't that picture on the sign look just like all the pictures of Hassler? Even the scarf is always the same. Maybe there is actually only one picture of him in existence (perhaps the one in S.P. 7) and it gets reproduced in every book about him.
Still, it is a very usable mark, unlike so many we find on the tops of mountains, which seem to be only for our own hobby interest any more. WILLOW GROVE sits in an open soccer field, and though it has some tree and house interference to the north and west, it may be a decent GPS station. It is certainly very accessible. I would like to see it back in the database.
I have emailed Dave asking if he knows anything about the reference mark as well as the destroyed status. I am fairly certain that the destroyed status was an error--there is a recovery in 2005 that says, simply, "RM1 ONLY" and I believe that somehow translated to a full destroyed status. I have also emailed Deb with that information. Once I hear back from them I will submit a new recovery. I spent well over an hour at that mark measuring distances to various objects, including the two reference marks (and it wasn't easy to measure to RM2, since it was a distance of 136 feet or so and I only have a 100 foot tape, plus I had to measure THROUGH a chain link fence. I would never submit that measurement as definitive!). Add the rain, wind, and an umbrella to the mix and I was a sorry looking puppy at the end of my time there.
I noticed a few stations that didn't make the grade and wondering if they are considered secondary.
/
"1927 Log - STATION WAS MARKED BY A CIRCULAR PILE OF ROCKS, AND IS PROBABLY THE INTERSECTION STATION PARIS, OF THE EASTERN OBLIQUE ARC"
/
As I pointed out in another thread, the station description was co-mingled with:
/
Regarding Maryland Heights S
/
Should this be replaced with
or
?
What about , which is south of these two stations? "No descriptive text available" - Hmmm. I'm betting there's a drill hole there, and if so, can this station be brought back to life?
So many questions :D
~ Mitch ~
You can definitely bring a NonPub station if it has "D" status (No Description) back to life. You simply provide the description. But finding a definitive description may be a problem. I have resurrected a few of these (I call them Lazarus Logs) by doing some research in old documents. That's how I got Pine Tree Monument and Watatick State Line published. And the nice (unexpected) byproduct of the latter, is it turns out to be the oldest station in New Hampshire! Edit: I just noticed, it's now the "Least Recently Recovered Station" in the US (175 years since last recovery which was the monumentation) according to Holograph's site. Not bad for a Lazarus Log! (of course his is slightly bogus since it was non published, but I'll take it.) As for the EOA, I am considering providing a description for Lippencott 1837 by giving the information on the occupation of the station given in S.P. 7, page 141, but I haven't gotten around to that. I usually say something like:
The clipping, entitled “From the Bureau of Geology” and dated Spring 1985, describes the unsuccessful searches for two of Hassler’s 1817 marks, SPRINGFIELD and CRANETOWN. The searchers included Ralph Post of NGS and Jeff Olsen, then of NJGCS, now of NGS. Despite considerable detective work and considerable field work (which included running traverses), they were not able to find either mark. CRANETOWN appears to be under a portion of a house. The section of the article on SPRINGFIELD indicates that there were two different SPRINGFIELDs! An NGS database search for the observations for station SPRINGFIELD RESET show no 1817 observations. The on-line description does indicate that SPRINGFIELD RESET was originally set in 1817, but that may be a mistake.
I believe the other 1817 stations have also been thoroughly searched for. The only remaining 1817 station that I am aware of is the Sandy Hook Lighthouse. The on-site historian told me that the top, metal portion of the lighthouse was rebuilt in the 1850’s because of extension corrosion, so even it is not the exact object that Hassler pointed on. For a photo of the lighthouse, see: (go to 3rd page) .
I also have a newspaper clipping describing the successful search for the old, original station DISBORO in New Jersey, see: . The cones were replaced with disks in 1982, see the NGS description at: .
In PA, station WILLOW GROVE was found by Ralph Poust in 1978, see: . The cone was broken, but still shiny on the outside. The NGS description is at: . The recovery notes do not mention 1978, but the 1983 recovery note mentions the “1978” stamping.
Sorry for the two poor scans, the copies I was working from were very dark.
For a photo of an old earthenware cone, see:
The 1978 work at WILLOW GROVE might be in the folder with other NJ work. I have sent an email asking about this.
GeorgeL
NGS
Thanks George, those are great references. But we all know that no matter who and how long some marks was searched for and not found, we might be the one to find it!
As for the 1817 marks occupied later, I noticed that as well. But I think it may not be a mistake. As we have discussed, the early Borden marks in Massachusetts set in the 1830s were re-occupied later by the USCS in the 1840s, but retain their original monumentation dates. The ones's I've looked at include MY3791 - WACHUSETT (1833), LW4436 - MANOMET (1835), LW2112 - GREAT MEADOW 1836 (1836), and LW2119 - COPECUT (1837). Those were all used in the EOA and were reoccupied in 1844 and 1845 by the USCS and ironically it was C. O. Boutelle who did the work for Bache (Hassler having died in 1843) since he had previously worked for Borden on those same stations about a decade earlier. And I've read a report by Boutelle on why MY4858 - THOMPSON was set in 1846 and used instead of MY4950 - RAILCUT (an 1834 Borden station). He calculated that Manomet would not be visible from RAILCUT, so the went to nearby Mount Thompson (now known as Mount Anne) , slightly higher and only a mile or 2 from RAILCUT to get the sight lines they needed.
I assume they didn't use Borden's original observations for a few possible reasons: 1) They couldn't find them, 2) They needed to reoccupy the sites anyway to observe on additional stations; 3) the original observations were not sufficiently precise or documented.
So it may have been the same for Hassler's 1817 stations. They found the stations and used them but had to remeasure to new stations anyway so they did not include the 1817 observations.
But when the data sheets were put together, the older records must have been around to give the original monumentation date, which was not necessarily the occupation date for the Coast Survey surveys.
Which brings up the issue we have discussed: when you say how old a station is, do you use the date it was originally set, or when it was occupied and perhaps adjusted to a new value, higher order, etc. On GC we generally just look at the monumentation date, since the other more technical information tends not to appear on the data sheets.
mloser replied on on 03 December 2008 - 11:34 AM
I remember those "Lazarus" discussions and in fact have submitted KW2650 as a Lazarus station. I went to the trouble of downloading the entire non-pub list and processing it so I could see it in Google Earth, then loaded them to my GPSr. I am so hard up for local stations I have started looking for ones that basically don't exist! I found KW2650 easily because t is an existing USGS station and I had the USGS description. I am waiting for it to magically un-destroy.
My concern with WILLOW GROVE is that there is useful information in the 1978 setting information that should be part of the NGS record, and if we can find that I can use it as part of my recovery, or even return to the station and take better measurements, then submit a recovery. I also wanted Deb to be aware of the situation--she may remove the destroyed status just based on the 2005 recovery text.
George,
Thanks for chiming in! It looks like the mark was legit, even though some of the historic documentation seemed to say differently.
I wonder what happened to the cone! Hopefully NJGS will come through with the 1978 information and we can make a better datasheet from it.
Harry Dolphin replied on on 03 December 2008 - 04:44 PM
Dolphin is nothing, if not obstinant! Springfield Reset may not qualify for the Epping Base Net, but we will find it! Unfortunately, the references are to the missing witness post, and the triple trunk tree that we see (which is NOT a cherry) may not be old enough. Digging a foot deep hole, four feet across in a county reservation, right next to a trail. Hmm! We have found many of the reference marks, and rivets. Just a matter of digging. ;)
The initials SSZ are quite familiar to me. This guy must be a benchmark hunter who happens to work for the Port Authority. I first noticed the initials as the first recovery of PALISADES (in 2000) since the construction of the George Washington Bridge. Then I noticed he had recovered 456, a chiseled square in the Brooklyn Navy Yard thought to be the oldest bench mark in NYC (circa 1850) - they wouldn't let me in. Then when I looked into BUTTERMILK prior to Holtie's and my trip there last year, there were those initials "SSZ" in 2000. He scooped us all George, no? And when I went to find BOGART, the origin of the Staten Island coordinate system and supposedly destroyed in 1966, there they were again "SSZ", from 2000.
SSZ always seemed to have gotten to historic marks before me, and working for the Port Authority sure can't hurt in getting access. But hey, at least I beat him to PINE TREE MONUMENT :laughing: Good thing the Port Authority doesn't extend their reach up to the NH border. I'd like to meet him some day, sounds like a neat guy.
NGS Surveyor replied on on 04 December 2008 - 09:13 AM
GeorgeL
NGS
I have a question about the "copper bolt" which I'm told use to be the mount for the marble tablet. You don't mention the two survey seals that are on the ledge.
I don't have a get deal of experience benchmark hunting and also didn't see anything to indicate these in regards to coordinates or posting.
Welcome to the hobby.
I'm not sure exactly what your question is, but an explanation on what is and what was there may help.
When the survey was originally done, a granite block was buried at the east end and another block was placed on top of it. In it's very center a drill hole was made and a copper bolt inserted. This bolt survives to this day. At the west end, a flat spot was carved from the ridge rock and a similar bolt was placed in it's center. This also survives.
These two bolts were used by the surveyors to mark the two ends of the base line. Then afterwards, a marble post was set on each end on top of these bolts. These were somewhat decorative, and were repeatedly vandalized and now are gone (although I think one is in a local museum). The loss of these posts however doesn't mean the geodetic position was lost, since it was the underlying bolt that actually marked the point.
There are also numerous reference monuments and mile markers along the line, but the two end points are the stations. Quite possibly the two seals you mention were the reference disks for the West Base. When I was there last year, it was getting dark and I didn't have a chance to look for them. Reference marks are put there to help you find the station and I usually do look for them all, but the station is the primary point.
These were recently surveyed using high accuracy GPS and the original bas line measurement was verified to within inches of it's original 1857 measurement.
Here's the East End block and bolt:
More detail and photos can be found in my log: .
And here's the West End rock and bolt. You'll notice some cement along the back side of the spot. I believe this is a remnant of the cement that was used to mount the marble column when it was repaired in 1964.
More detail and photos can be found in my log:
Hope you enjoyed your visit. That's a beautiful area.