Papa-Bear-NYC

I'm not sure about these two. CAP has adjusted coordinates AND elevation, BOLT has scaled coordinates and adjusted elevation. BOLT has an elevation of 1331.14 ft and CAP has 1335.13 ft, a difference of 3.99 ft. So they both have highly accurate elevation (both First Order Vertical) but only CASS has accurate location (Second order horizontal). Perhaps they leveled to both, but couldn't get the theodolite over the bolt. Perhaps the pipe wasn't plumb, but then how did they get a leveling rod down there. Maybe they leveled to it before they put the pipe in and filled the hole, It was certainly not plumb in 1959. Clearly not your typical underground station. Anyway, in my opinion, you should see them both to log a FOUND for both. Couldn't you see down the pipe? Was it filled with dirt? I'm not sure what kind of tool would work to clean it out. A cool combination, that's for sure.

Historically the markers were set by the "US Engineers" (Originally a joint dept. bet Army and Navy I think) and later the Army Corps of Engineers. Often you will see the agency listed as :"USE" or sometimes "DOD". As with many agencies, only a portion of their markers were listed by the NGS (National Geodetic Survey) which was CGS (Coast and Geodetic Survey). Some folks have obtained lists from local Army C. of E. offices. Here's one in Queens NY I found a few years ago. It's a battered disk stamped "United States Engineer Dept" and "New York", and some "Do Not Remove" stuff. KU0983 - TIDAL 56 USE STA II 6 (1952) Click for larger image Notice the name "TIDAL 56 USE STA II 6" incorporates the agency "USE". And here's another which is very close to the first (this was an old Army Base - Fort Totten): KU0983 - 3 USE (1938) Click for larger image Notice this is stamped "Corps of Engineers U.S. Army". So where are they? All over - particularly in harbor areas.. How to find them - just search the listings for your area for "USE" disks and talk to the local engineers office if there's one nearby.

RMs have been moved in the past with no great harm. Check this data sheet: MT BLUE. Seems when they built a new tower in 1931, they must have knocked out RM2. So the construction team set it in one of the concrete footings of the new tower, and pointed towards north. This was noticed in 1958 and noted in the log. So stop worrying. Let him put is more or less where it used to be and then log a recovery noting the RM was knocked out of the ground and put back in a different place. No high priced GPS, no OPUS, no NTK, no banging up the disk, no new RM3, no worry. BTW: here's that misplaced MOUNT BLUE RM2: (click for larger image) The station mark is under the tower off the frame towards the upper right. RM2 points off the frame towards the bottom.

There's three parts 1) I use the NGS>GPX utility developed by our own foxtrot xray to process data sheets into GPX format and I then load them into GSAK. I usually keep a county worth of stations in a GSAK database (there are many databases which can exist in GSAK - I have about 50). In this case I just took the single data sheet for that particular station. The preprocessing utility takes the box score and calculates the lat and long of the reference marks and makes them child waypoints. This part is routine and involves no special knowledge or techniques. 2) I then run a couple of GSAK macros which I wrote. The first builds a command line for a Google Map application I wrote, and the second starts up the application on the web. Both of these merely move data fields around and puts them into a URL and then sends that URL out to the web. 3) I wrote a Google map application for benchmarks. There are others out that do that, but mine specializes in displaying one station of choice, not every station in a state, county etc. As such it displays the RMs as an option and even has a "blank" map type which can be zoomed in very close which is what I used here. Note the scale in the lower left of the map image is 20 ft to about an inch, and note the map type in the lower right is "blank map". If one tried to plot them on any real map type (satellite view, USGS topgraphic, etc.) You couldn't get down close enough. This is the same map application I use for triangulations (see my recent Eastern Oblique Arc thread) and can also display track logs for when I bushwhack to a station. This map application is the one part that required a lot of programmatic effort on my part. If you bring up the interactive map which I gave the link for in the first note of that thread: This Link, you should get a Google Map showing a triangulation scheme for down-east Maine. Click on a station such as Trescott Rock and an info-window pops up. Click on "Map" in that window and you'll get one of my single marker maps. By default (for Trescott Rock) it shows the two RMs (the ones in the box score). Switch the map type to "blank" by using the selector in the upper right, then zoom in as far as you like and you'll get a diagram such as the one I displayed in this thread. If you click on the line from the station to either RM, it will give the distance. Once the work of getting the map application to work was done, there's practically no work to produce the diagrams for any station. I usually run of a bunch of these when I go on a trip and it helps enormously, as you might imagine. If you're interested in the map program, email me off line. Due to it's highly evolving nature (evolving as we speak - I got the track logs working yesterday) I'm not (yet) able to release it to the public - nor am I sure there's much public interest, given the plethora of map software out there from Google and others. Besides, the usefulness of the maps depends on getting GSAK up and running and getting the stations of interest into GSAK. It's easy once you're up and running, but there is obviously a learning curve. To make that one diagram it took me a few minutes. To start from zero, would be quite a bit of work, mostly learning how to use GSAK, and learning to use my maps. For what I do, it was well worth the effort, and besides I'm a computer guy and I enjoy working with this software.

Easy 1) download the diagram to your machine. Feel free to reuse it. Put it at some convenient folder on your machine. Something like "My Pictures/Benchmarks/KL0637 diagram.jpg" 2) go to the GC page and for KL0637 3) click on "visit log" for your log 4) click on "[upload image]" which is on the upper right of the screen 5) fill in the first box with the place on your system where you put it 6) give it a caption and a note and you're done You can then also edit your log and tell people the diagram is there and what it means. Warning: it's would not be too too surprising if the next 27 folks logging the station ignored your note and logged reference Mark 1 or 2. I know most ignore similar notes I have placed. Whatever! The problem is many (most?) folks read the other logs (if at all) after they have been to the spot. Mighty few will go back up 14440 feet to find something someone told them they ought to have found the first time!

Or just post this and tell them to follow the diagram -

(duplicate)

George I've only had time to skim through the paper but it's a great piece of work and will be a good reference for many of us. Well done - Rg

NGS recovery logs posted already! An interesting surprise: when I checked the NGS data sheets for these stations this morning I saw my recovery logs were already there. I logged them a few days after returning home, probably around Aug. 8th or 9th, and now on the 21st they are already there. I must have hit the cycle at just the right point. Has any one else noticed their late July / early August recovery logs to the NGS posted yet?

A little Bit of This 'n' That A couple of Tri-stations Maguerrewok (1887) In Tuesday, between the seminar and the dedication ceremony, A had a couple of hours of free time, so I drove around to the soutwest part of town. This station is on land belonging to the Moosehorn National Wildlife refuge and a visit to their site across the bridge is recommended. I spotted 2 bald eagles on a nest in the marsh near the refuge road. This station is reached via a pleasant walk along Ice House Road to Dan's Road, a lovely grassy road which brings you to the top. The summit still has the old stone wall which is the "fence" mentioned in the original description. The station and both reference marks were found in good condition. A word about RM1: it is an old flat type USC&GS triangulation disk. It was set in 1909, when the station was visited 22 years after originally being set up and this was only a year or two after these disks were introduced. You would expect that a reference mark disk should have been used, but perhaps the survey party only had this triangulation station type of disk on hand. NGS Surveyor (George) who is on this forum, suggested that Reference Mark disks were not yet in use in 1909 - they first appeared around 1913. The discription merely calls the disk "a standard disk marker", so perhaps this type was the only type of disk available. It has led to confusion in the past, since these are almost always used for the station mark, not a reference mark. So if you see this disk, keep searching for the iron bolt (which you probably walked over to get to the disk). The bolt in the triangle is the station, not the disk. I have included an excerpt from the 1918 report on the survey in Maine, which explains the various dates and what happened when. It also states that the station was a drill hole and does not mention the iron bolt, which was evidently added later. Here's the escerpt ftrpm the 1918 Special Pubblication No. 46, "Triangulation in Maine". You'll notice the text is sbstantially similar to the entry on the data sheet (I'm sure those who puttthe data sheet together got the text from this publication), but with a few telling differences: Maguerrewoc (Washington County, C. H. B., 1887; 1909).-- On the southwest summit of Maguerrewoc Mountain located about 3/4 mile southeasterly from the southern part of Milltown, and about 3/4 mile east of St. Croix River and 1/4 mile east of the road from Calais and Milltown to Baring. ... The station is marked according to note 16 (a drill hole surrounded by a triangle). When the signal was erected in 1908 three drill holes were made, each 7 feet from the center, for bolts to which the wire guys were fastened. In 1909, when a taller signal pole was required, the guy bolts were set in other holes at a greater distance. The holes thus vacated will not be mistaken for the station mark, as the latter is inclosed by the deep cut triangle already mentioned. Two references were also established, the first being a standard disk marker set in a drilled hole in the top of a small rocky knob 7.5 meters to the northeastward of the station; the second reference mark is a cross within a 5-inch equilateral triangle cut on the flat surface of an exposed ledge, at a distance of 5.634 meters south by east from the station and about a foot north of the line fence. One further point to note is that Maguerrewok is a first order station established in 1887. It almost certainly was one of the stations extablished when they connected the survey up along the St. Croix River to the primary scheme (the EOA) mentioned in the 1890 Annual report excerpted in the note above on the Calais Observatory. Left: the bolt within the triangle on the boulder Right: the olf CGS disk used a s a reference mark GC Log entry: Maguerrewok log Peaked Mtn This mark has nothing to do with either the EOA, or the boundary, but it was quite a trek (both in the car and on foot) to get to. It's on the highest point of Aroostook County. It was an interesting search, I recommend you read the log. Left: the disk in a cleft in the rock ledge Right: a small cairn was left over the disk. GC Log entry: Peaked Mtn log Boundary Reference Monuments on the shore of the St. Croix (1909 & 1921) While in Calais, I recovered 4 pairs of stations in my spare time - 1909 triangulation stations paired with 1921 IBC Reference Monuments. So what are these double survey marker stations?. All along the shore of the Saint Croix River, from it's mouth down in Robbinston up along the river into Aroostook County, the International Boundary Commission and it's Predecesssor the US and Canada Boundary Survey was tasked by the treaty of 1908 to define all the points in the Saint Croix river which constituted the boundary. This consisted of almost 1100 turning points - points in the river wherever the river made a turn - all the way from it's source in Amity in Aroostook County where the stream was but a trickle, down to it's mouth in Robbinston where it empties into Passamaquoddy Bay and it forms a broad stream between Maine and New Brunswick (and has 20+ foot tides). But none of these points is marked. They are out in the river, so they exist only on paper. They are virtual boundary points if you will. But in order to specify exactly where these points were, the shore line was carefully surveyed and hundreds of triangulation stations were put into place starting in 1909. These were usually disks, or sometimes drill holes in rocks. They used USC&GS old style tri-station disks (which had just come into use), since they did not have any disks of their own making till 4 or 5 years later, in the mid 1910s. Somewhat later (around 1912 or 1913) they produced a custom reference marker for this purpose - an 8 inch long bronze post suitably marked. There were a total of 245 of these put in along the US and Canadian shore lines of the St. Croix, starting with No. 2 near the source of the St. Croix to No. 246 down in Robbinston. To save the cost of resurveying the whole river, they set these bronze posts right next to the 1909 tri-stations. Occasionally, when the older disk had broken off, they would simply put the newer marker right where the old disk had been. The first of these were set in 1913 near the source and In this area of the river the posts were put in place in 1921. I managed to find four of these "Pairs", although one (Mon 246=Initial) no longer has a disk (it's position was taken over by the bronze monument), and another (#242 on St. Croix Island) has only the stub of a disk. One of them (Mon 239 / De Monts) was recovered by Harry Dolphin last year. Incidentally, I consider my trip to St. Croix Island (aka Dochet island, aka Bone Island, aka De Monts Island) a bit of a coup. The National Park Service, which administers the Island, discourages visits due to the fragility of the landscape and allows private but not commercial trips - so there is no ferry service or boats-for-hire to get you there. I got a ride from a local lobsterman who was a friend of a friend and whom I met at the dedication of Meridian Park the day before. Here are a few pictures: Left: Mon 246 = Initial Right: Mon 242 / Dochet Island Left: Mon 239 / De Monts Right: Mon 237 / Miller And here are the GC logs: Mon 246 = Initial Mon 242 / Dochet Island Mon 239 / De Monts Mon 237 / Miller Actually these (except for the first) have two log entries each, since the disk and the monument are separate stations, but I just put in the link for the disk.

The Initial Monument and its Connection by Triangulation to the Eastern Oblique Arc There is a monument up in Amity Maine, in Aroostook County, called the Initial Monument. It was the first point on the entire boundary between the US and Canada to be fixed, in 1798. At that time, the details of the rest of the border were still in dispute. A cedar post was set. This was replaced in 1817 by another cedar post when the North Line was laid out as an "Exploratory" line, but not yet accepted at the official boundary. The North Line and most of the rest of the border was finally defined by the treaty of 1842, and the Initial Monument got an Iron post, right next to the 1817 cedar post. This is shown in the vintage 1908 photo below. The iron post remains, and I'm told the 1817 cedar post was shipped to the Maine State Museum in Augusta after the iron post was reset with a concrete base (soon after the second picture below was taken). It is apparently in storage in the annex, not on display. Vintage 1908 photo showing the 1843 iron post (which is still there) and the 1817 cedar post. Vintage photo (1908) taken after the monument was reset in its concrete base. The base is very high above the ground, perhaps to keep the monument at the same height. The 1817 cedar post appears to have been pulled from the ground and is leaning against the base. 1867 CGS report on the condition of the Initial Monument and on extending the CGS Survey up to that monument. 1890 CGS report of the extension of the CGS triangulation up to the Initial Monument and the establishment of stations around the vicinity. The work done in 1889 was north of the line Spruce Mt - Mount Henry shown on the following diagram. It's not clear which were the 10 stations established as documented in 1890, but they must have included Peekaboo Mt, Spring Hill (obscured on the diagram) and Pole Hill on the US side, Green Mt., McInelly, and Kennedy on the Canadian side and Initial and Transit on the line. The other two may have been in the area of the lakes in the center of the area, possibly Walls Hill and Pemberton Ridge. Of interest is that the same "Mr. Boyd" was working on the same project 23 years after the first report. Didn't that guy have a life? Diagram from S.P. 46 "Triangulation in Maine" (1918) showing the 1867-1889 work along the St. Croix connecting the initial monument to the CGS survey near Calais. Although I unquestionably "found" the monument (from about .4 miles away), I could not approach close to it due to flooding along the vista. I hope to go back when the ground freezes and get a close up look. Stay tuned to this page. Initial Monument 1 as seen from Monument 1A (about .4 miles distant) from my recent visit. Initial Monument 1 IBC GC log Pole Hill (1889) This station is on a low hill that runs north-south about 1/2 mile just west (on the US side) of the border. Pole Hill is a First Order station and was used at the most northeasterly point of the early surveys of the state of Maine, and effectively it tied the boundary monuments into the survey of the state and the entire east coast. To get to the station I went north along the boundary swath past Monument 1A, and nearly to 1B. Then I headed straight up the hill, through relatively open woods to an old track road which ran along the ridge line. My GPS said I had hit the ridge about 200 feet north of the station, so I simply walked along the old road and Voila! there was the 6' x 3' bolder at the side of the road, and there was the old US&CBS disk on the boulder surrounded by a chiseled triangle. It was an easy find (aside from getting there) and the station was in good shape. Originally the station was a simple drill hole, but the disk was set in the drill hole in 1916. Pole Hill station mark on the boulder, surrounded by a chiseled triangle. The disk was set in 1916 in the 1889 drill hole. Pole Hill GC log

The Curious and Wonderful Tale of the Calais Oservatory This story is about the newly dedicated Meridian park, in Calais. It goes back some 9 years. Or actually you could say it goes back 152 years to when the Calais Observatory was established by the Coast Survey in 1857. My own awareness is much more recent. I became aware of Calais Observatory simply as a station in the Eastern Oblique Arc, and in fact, a station whose station mark was destroyed in the 1930s. I visited it anyway in 2007, but didn't understand what I was looking at. There was, however a new disk there set by the NGS in 2005, marking the site as #1 on the NGS Heritage Trail. See Calais Observatory Commemorative Station. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Geodetic Survey (NGS), is the successor agency of the Coast Survey set up by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807. I learned from that web page that Calais was the last link in establishing accurate longitude in North America via telegraph. Measurements were made in discreet pieces, , first from Harvard College Observatory to Thomas Hill Observatory in Bangor, Maine in 1851, from Thomas Hill Observatory to Calais Observatory in 1857, and in 1866, with the success of the Transatlantic Telegraph Cable, observations were made from Greenwich Observatory (0-degrees longitude or the Prime Meridian), to Foilhommerum, Valentia Island, Ireland; from Ireland to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, and in the closing days of 1866 the final ‘connection’ was made between Newfoundland and Calais Maine, essentially making the Calais Observatory the ‘golden spike’ of longitude where mathematical longitude determinations between the old and new world met. An Astronomical Transit (in the Smithsonian) thought to be like to one used at Calais. Note the crank which fits in the groove of the transit stone. 1895 saw the last NGS activity at Calais for 110 years (the Coast Survey performed direct observations between Calais and Harvard Observatories) and for many years only the stone supports for the various instruments remained; the building which housed and protected the instruments, hastily built in 1857, was long gone. Then sometime in the early 1930s, about 75 years after the observatory had been built, it is thought that some mischievous kids from the nearby Calais Academy, managed to topple the heavy granite Transit Stone over and send it rolling down the hill. Its significance had long been lost to anyone in the area. But the stone had held the transit used to measure longitude, and with the stone gone, the station was lost, and it was so reported in a 1935 log on the station's data sheet. 1998 photo showing the site as it appeared from the early 1930s till 2005. Photo by Harold Nelson. Another 65 years or so passed when the Maine Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) was surveying for a project along Main Street in Calais. Harold Nelson, who was Project Coordinator for the survey began researching the geodetic control stations in order to tie the survey into State Plane Coordinates. He found one station of curious interest, CALAIS OBSERVATORY 1866. Harold inquired from colleagues at the NGS, exactly what was that, and was told it was a longitude station and that it played an important historic role in establishing accurate longitude in North America. Harold then spent many hours in the University of Maine’s Fogler Library and went back to visit the Calais site in 1998 and discovered a stone at the bottom of the hill that looked like it might be the Transit Stone. He also noticed an interesting spot at the top that had been carved and leveled in the exposed bedrock, next to the mysterious stone pillar that remained at the top. 1998 photo showing a granite block at the base of the hill, which was suspected to be the missing transit stone. Photo: Harold Nelson. Things moved along till 2005 when the NGS set the heritage disk and the Calais Historical Society was marshalling local support and volunteer efforts to clean up and rehabilitate the site as a park. At this time, the NGS crew recorded almost 2 hours of GPS readings on the "pad" next to the stone pillar, while the heritage disk was being set nearby, and the local highway department was enlisted to move the stone back up the hill and see if it fit into the pad. Gayle Moholland, who was working with the city crew, said "There was no question as to where to set it. It fits snug as a bug within the cut out area of the stone". Harold had by now done research on similar stations, some of which still survive: the Transit Stone held the Astronomical Transit used in longitude determinations, and the pillar held the astronomical clock that was used to transmit a steady series on "ticks" over the telegraph to the station at the other end of the line. 2005 photo showing the GPS set over the pad, while work is going on behind on the heritage disk. Photo: Harold Nelson 2005 photo showing the local highway department moving the stone into place. Photo: Gayle Moholland Sometime later, the results of the GPS measurement came back. The software used by the NGS, called OPUS, sent back this cryptic note at the bottom of the output from the GPS measurement: NEAREST NGS PUBLISHED CONTROL POINT QF0763 CALAIS OBSERVATORY N451105.185 W0671650.588 0.0 This position and these vector components were computed without any knowledge by the National Geodetic Survey regarding the equipment or field operating procedures used. 8002 The Opus solution for your submitted RINEX file appears to be 8002 quite close to an NGS published control point. This suggests that 8002 you may have set your GPS receiver up over an NGS control point. 8002 Furthermore, our files indicate that this control point has not 8002 been recovered in the last five years. 8002 If you did indeed recover an NGS control point, we would 8002 appreciate receiving this information through our web based 8002 Mark Recovery Form at 8002 (visit link) The GPS position taken on the carved pad compared with the latitude and longitude of the CALAIS OBSERVATORY 1866 station showed that the distance between the two points was but .1278 m or just over 5 inches. Considering the GPS was set up in an approximate location estimated by eye to be the center of the pad, and no research was done to discover how the transit was set or positioned on the stone, nor how closely the flagpole on the roof above was positioned, this result is nothing short of astounding. Further research may allow a more accurate determination, but at this point it's clear that the original position of the Transit Stone has been reestablished and the layout of the site is much as it was in 1857, over 150 years ago. I received an email about 2 months ago that the site behind the Calais Academy was to be established as a city park. So I was there on August 4th at a seminar giving the background on the station and later I was at the dedication ceremony at the site. Iwas immensely impressed by the local group of history buffs, who together with the local elected officials and agencies, and a donor who donated a significant property at the site to the city, made this project happen. And all this cost the City of Calais exactly $0.00 (that's zero dollars and zero cents)! I'm amazed and humbled. The dedication: Harold Nelson is explaining the details, Richard Auletta, president of the Historical Society is on the left and Jim Porter, city manager of Calais in behind in the back center. The transit stone makes a nice podium, don't you think? Special Recognition: Richard Auletta, who has worked tirelessly on preservation and understanding of the Calais Observatory Gayle Moholland and the Highway Department of the City of Calais for moving the Transit Stone from the foot of the hill and returning it to the original position. Jim Porter, City Manager of Calais, who was the first contact Harold Nelson made on a hot July 3, 1998, and has been a supporter of this project from the beginning. Jim provided Harold with a ladder to get to the top of the ‘clock stone’ to see if there were any markings on it. Mike Johnson and Leonard Scott, property owners of significant portions of the site who each donated land to the city for the park. Does this mean the station is no longer lost? Is it found? No, I'm afraid not. I would say it's not found due to the uncertainties mentioned above, and the lead bolt has disappeared, or perhaps never existed. The best we could say is that the original station was somewhere within about 5 inches of the center of the Transit Stone. But hey!, that's pretty d&mn good by my way of thinking! Links: Harold Nelson has a number of web pages up concerning his research on this and related topics. This link is from the Alumni of Calais Academy page which in turn has links to many other related pages including Harold's: CalaisAlumni.org history page

Finding Rye 1866 I first tried to find this in 2007. Quoting from my log: I decided to try to follow the 1963 directions. I found the old road 3.4 miles from the route 1 / route 9 intersection. Unfortunately, the house with the mailbox of M. Brownlee, "WHO OWNS THE LAND WHERE THE MARK AND KNOWS EXACTLY WHERE IT IS LOCATED" was long gone. At this point, route 9 must have been relocated some years back and the old right of way (to the north) rejoined the present highway right where the old road went into the woods. The GPS said .8 miles to the mark. I followed this road for about .2 miles and from there it was a cross country bushwhack following the lead of my GPS. The going was bad. Trashy 3rd growth forest interspersed with clearings that were overrun with near impenetrable blackberry patches with thorns. I slowly and painfully made my way around and through these obstacles till I got about .2 miles from the top. Suddenly I found a road which helped me make a little progress upward but it soon went off in its own direction and I was left to my own navigation skills once again. At long last I reached a clearing near the summit and my GPS beeped and cheerfully said "Arriving at QF0932". I wish it were so! The clearing was overrun with thorns, rocks every which way in piles large and small and no apparent open ledges (need I mention there was no witness sign nailed to a tree). Every pile of rocks was on top of more rocks as far as I could dig. After about 30 minutes of this (did I mentioned this was the one and only hot and buggy day of our vacation) I gave it up. Here's a site photo from 2007. The excavation near the bottom turned up nothing: This year's searched went much better. My route to the summit was far superior to the one I took in 2007. This time I used aerial views from Google Maps and found some logging roads which led to within .1 miles of the summit. They were not drivable in my rental car, but they were easily walkable. The final bushwhack to the top was also easy. Somehow the brambles I had passed through in 2007 where off to the side. My strategy was first to search for the witness sign that was supposedly placed here in 1963, but that was nowhere to be found. Then I looked for piles of rocks, but as mentioned in my previous log, they were everywhere, and none particularly stood out. My GPS got me to about a 20 foot circle, so I started methodically checking rock piles (for the purpose of this search, any two rocks close together made a "rock pile") and scanning. This time however I had my metal detector, which although no silver bullet, can help. What I did seem to have that I lacked in 2007, was luck. If you look at the first 2007 photo, you'll see an area in front of a spruce tree with a few rocks, and this is where I started my search this time. Guess what? PAYDIRT! I moved a few rocks out of the way, scanned with the metal detector over the ground and heard the beeping I wanted to hear. I switched to pin-point mode and found a hot spot. So I dug through about 2 inches of dirt, roots, spruce needles and assorted vegetation, and BINGO, there was my copper bolt in a little hollow in the ledge. Here's the bolt as it was first uncovered. Notice the thick mat of dirt, roots, needles and assorted vegetation which covered the ledge. Thank god for the metal detector! There were supposed to be 4 holes around the mark, 3 at 18" distant to the north, south and west, and one 6" distant to the east. So I scraped the duff off the ledge to the east and BINGO, there was a drill hole about 6" from the copper bolt. This hole was the clincher, although I would not expect random copper bolts on this out of the way peak.. Here's the bolt with the 6" distant hole: I never did find the other 3 holes. The ledge tended to disappear after about 18 inches out, and I could not assume either the original distances or directions were highly accurate. It would have been quite an excavation to clear the ledge out to say 24" all around the copper bolt with my little garden trowel, so I let those 3 holes go. Maybe the next person to visit the site will dig a little further out and find them. Here's the rock ledge cleard to about 18" out: I built a small cairn over the station on the ledge. Hopefully this will do better than the 1963 rock pile. Here it is: Here's the GC log: Rye 1866 Log

I recently spent nearly a week in eastern and northern Maine around the first of August doing some serious survey marker hunting. My searches were centered around 1) the Eastern Oblique Arc and 2) the US-Canada boundary with a few triangulation stations thrown in. It involves stations up in Aroostook and Washington counties which are a looooong way away and where things are faaaaar apart. I drove over 1200 miles in 5 travel days! My interest in the Eastern Oblique Arc (EOA for short) is familiar to many in this group. This is the 6th forum thread on the subject. Check these links for the past threads. My vacation intersects the Eastern Oblique Arc October 2007 The Eastern Oblique Arc crosses Massachusetts April 2008 The Eastern Oblique Arc meets the Borden Survey July 2008 The Eastern Oblique Arc in Western Maine and New Hampshire August 2008 The Epping Base Net of the Eastern Oblique Arc November 2008 I got intrested in the EOA in the summer of 2007, as I was planning a trip to Maine and New Brunswick as a vacation with my wife. Prompted by some discussions on this forum, I had recently read Holograph's excellent Wiki on the Eastern Oblique Arc. 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. So my 2007 trip was devoted to finding as many stations as possible that still exist in the area. Here's Holograph's Wiki: EOA Wiki. This years trip was built on two basic ideas: finish the missing stations in the easternmost segment of the EOA, and check out the connections made in the 19th century between the primary triangulation scheme (the EOA) and the US-Canadian boundary, which after nearly 50 years of wrangling, was finally agreed upon in 1842 and laid out in the several years following. As for the EOA, check out this map: Here's the link to the live interactive version: EOA Easternmost section Move it, zoom it, click on the stations, explore the area. Rye 1866, in the upper left of the triangulation scheme was the last one in Maine that was known still to exist, and one for which I had a DNF in 2007. I'm happy to say that push pin was turned green in this trip and I have a note below in this thread on that happy find. Besides the gray push pins on Howard (under a concrete radar pad) and Grand Manan Island (a very long swim) I was finished with this section. But what about the three red ones: St. David, Calais Observatory and Prince Regent Redoubt? Well, St. David was lost when the owner of the land "removed the station-mark and built a house over it" in 1887 (quote from 1888 CGS Annual Report), and Prince Regent Redoubt was lost in 1910. Not much to go on there. But Calais Observatory was another story. The logs on the datasheet say it was lost prior to 1935, and a 1998 log said the stone the transit was mounted on was found at the foot of the hill, so I figured that was that. But when I visited the site in 2007 anyway, I was intrigued by a new NGS disk that had been placed there a few years prior, and that story went on as I learned more about the history of the site and this culminated on August 4th. See the note below on this highly unusual story. As for the connection with the boundary, I found these two excerpts from the CGS annual reports: From the 1867 report: And from the 1890 report: So I visited a couple of the stations in question and you will hear about that in another note below. Finally there were two triangulation station unrelated to these topics, but which were nice finds nevertheless, plus a few more reference monuments in the Calais Area which were set by the boundary commission when the route of the boundary through the St. Croix River was fixed in the early part of the 20th century. Read on ...

My recent benchmark and adventures coupled with recent weather trends, have taken me more often than I would like though boggy area. From crossable flooding (say 10' long by 8" deep) on woods roads to less easily crossable areas in log yards and skid roads (20-30' by 12" - but with grass on top), and finally to beaver ponds where the standing water and mud underneath may be several feet in depth. Beavers take out a road Often in boggy areas, say along the US-Canada border swath, you can sometimes manage to step on the grass and vegetation and sometimes move on to the next spot it before you sink. Or some times not. Sort of like tip-toeing in heavy boots. Places like this I just got a pair of 16" Bean boots, and even they just put off the inevitable. What do pros do? Surveyors, forest engineers, loggers, boundary perambulators? What to they do? What do you guys do? I have opted out of the Fisherman's hip boots or complete (arm pit?) boots for fear of falling over and drowning. Besides I could hardly hike the miles before during and after the boggy parts in such. Here's an idea: for vegetated bogs, wear snow shoes or something similar, and try to keep above the vegetation and not sink? But I have visions of the snow shoes getting stuck in the mud and my days ending with the bottom (of me) drowning and the top (of me) being eaten alive by bugs. Should I contemplate a rubber raft for big areas? Or would that be a wasted effort getting the thing in and out. Anyone have any clever solutions? Thanks.

It looks a bit like the center of a triangulation station disk that has been mangled/removed. Could there have been a reset done there? Here's one (MY6361) that I know is a mangled tri-station disk (a bit more obvious): OTOH, if you know a disk was never put there and the other references match - maybe it's your bolt.

Great I've been sending photos in to Deb for at least 2 years and never saw any posted. So I looked again just now and about half of mine are up there. I was about to give up sending them in, so I guess I'll start doing it again. Thanks Deb, thanks NOAA, thanks whoever!

Hi rgesch 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: click for larger image More detail and photos can be found in my log: East Base 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. click for larger image More detail and photos can be found in my log: West Base log Hope you enjoyed your visit. That's a beautiful area.

Thought I had it, then I got "dynamic posts not allowed" error The URL for the photo must end in a type of ".jpg", ".gif" or some other image type. It cannot end in .html or other web page types. If you image is on a web page, you cannot use the URL of the page, you must use the URL of the image. To get that, in Firefox right-click on the image and click on "Copy Image Location" for Mozilla, or in IE right-click on the image, click on "Properties" and cut "URL".

The other VERY IMPORTANT distinction is that many folks consider the mark to be "FOUND" if it's there, even if it's out of the ground laying on its side. To a surveyor, if this is the condition, it is absolutely unuseable. The mark IS NOT THE DISK, it's the location or elevation the disk is supposed to mark. Thus a brand new looking disk which got knocked out by a piece of construction equipment (not unusual) is destroyed, no matter how good the disk looks.

You'd be surprised at the distances they measured even back in the 19th century. I've looked carefully at the first order triangulation done in New England (where the distances were the longest) which were done mostly in the 1860s and found the following as some of the longest (km and mi rounded to whole units): Ragged (ME) to Pleasant (ME) - 135 km (84 mi) Gunstock (NH) to Wachusett (MA) - 122 km (76 mi) Gunstock (NH) to Thompson (MA) - 113 km (70 mi) Ragged (ME) to Blue (ME) - 107 km (66 mi) Humpback (ME) to Ragged (ME) - 110 km (68 mi) Monadnock (NH) to Bald (CT) - 99 km (62 mi) Thompson (MA) to Wachusett (MA) - 96 km (60 mi) Gunstock (NH) to Monadnock (NH) - 95 km (59 mi) Harris (ME) to Blue (ME) - 94 km (58 mi) Unconnunoc (NH) to Blue Hill (MA) - 94 km (58 mi) Blue (ME) to Washington (NH) - 92 km (57 mi) Pretty amazing.

Hi Mike There's a good chance that marker is in the database here (but see this: from FAQ) First off it is a Tidal Bench Mark, set by the NOS in 1974. Most of those got themselves in to the GC database. What you need to provide is the location: 1) GPS coordinates if you have them 2) zip code is almost as good 3) city/town and state is better than nothing. Then go to this page: BM page And use the search box on the upper right. If you have the zip code, put it in, if not click on Other Search Options which gets you to a more detailed set of search options. Put in the Latitude and Longitude from you GPS, or look up the town's location and put that latitude and longitude in. Then you get a list. Your marker might have a designation something like this NO 4 4 TIDAL x STA II 4 TIDAL x 4 NOS 1974 (where "x" is variable) You get the idea. Also post the location here, and folks on this forum will give it a go. Next step - logging your find. When you've found the correct mark, let us know and we'll tell you the ins and outs of that. Nice find, have fun.

Here's how they did it 100 years ago in New York City: That cross piece is a spirit level with an attachment to fit into the grove of the disk or bolt. From this volume:

There was a thread not too long ago about getting data from the USGS for marks which show up on topos, together with a procedure for reporting a find to the USGS. You might try and search for that thread (sorry I couldn't find it just now) or maybe someone can give a link.

1910 USC&GS flat B.M. This is not my recovery, but I noticed it in the gallery. There are a bunch of recoveries and some reasonable pictures. It's a 1910 USC&GS flat B.M. with the date stamped on the disk and it's in not-too-bad condition. Here's the GC page: HT1333 "H7" This is perhaps the best picture by kirbycat H7 Here's another by cjf H7 which is highlighted with talc or cornstarch or something similar. And there are 3 or 4 more photos.