California Surveyors Forums

Whenever I look at this survey, I am reminded of how, today, we see surveys that assert they are more precise because the values have been measured with GPS. Does anyone have any thoughts on the attached?

I have a few thoughts on the 'my measurement is better than your measurement' for boundary surveys.

1.) I was taught that the 'meter' to use on retracing a survey is that of the original survey. NOT a new fangled tool's 'meter' that is more precise.
2.) I am also of the opinion that that the measurement error sources for older surveys and older equipment are greater than the measurement error sources for newer equipment. i.e. newer equipment is more precise. So what, you may ask? Well, in my opinion one of the places to start when determining if a previous survey has an error(s) is to examine the total error ellipse of the older measurements simultaneously with the total error ellipse of the newer equipment. (say 1 meter and .01 meter using the common, familiar equation to calculate simultaneously). If the current measurement falls within that simultaneous error ellipse then nothing can be said with any authority. If it falls outside that simultaneous error ellipse then more investigation needs to done to determine why and it becomes one factor to consider on the current survey resolution.

Perfectly explained Tom.

What intrigues me about this is how quickly the survey was rejected. I sense an underlying rivalry. The first surveyor had a reputation as a good surveyor. This raises the questions as to the quality of the balance of his work and his peers. This can't be an isolated situation. If nothing happened in this neighborhood for another fifty years, would the second surveyor have come back and rejected this work?

I retraced this and the adjoining sections and it is the most treacherous country I have ever been in. You know you are in trouble when someone sets fifty foot offsets! This is the only time I ever ran into a mountain lion, eight-foot long rattlesnakes and myself, going into isolation for contracting tularemia and getting deathly sick after being bitten by infected ticks. The Board of Health contacted me and they sent crews out to retrace everywhere I had been over a two week period for fear there would be more infections. Tularemia is the first cousin to the black plague. Man was I sick.

My work is reflected in MAP 10202.

Medical record:

"The signs and symptoms of tularemia vary depending on how the bacteria enter the body. Illness ranges from mild to life-threatening. All forms are accompanied by fever, which can be as high as 104 °F. Main forms of this disease are listed below:

Ulceroglandular This is the most common form of tularemia and usually occurs following a tick or deer fly bite or after handing of an infected animal. A skin ulcer appears at the site where the bacteria entered the body. The ulcer is accompanied by swelling of regional lymph glands, usually in the armpit or groin."

Yikes.....

I was out of work for a month. I had to go in to the hospital twice a day for injections in my rear end of heavy, heavy antibiotics. It was not fun.