Need Help.

[+kentuckygirls]

My cousins and I were out hiking today at Mammoth Cave National Park looking for some of our family history. Our Great Grandfather owned part of the land that is now the park. The remains of their home is there which is just a few cornerstones and chimney stones. There is also a cave like rock ledge that my grandfather and his brothers used to play poker that is located behind the old homeplace. We found this today!!! Set into the rock ledge above the opening is a disc. It says US Dept. of the Interior C248 NPS. I don't know if it is a survey disc or what. I went to the Dept. of the Interior website and could not find out anything. Could anybody help me? Is there a website that I can go to that will tell me why this disc is there? Any information might be useful, I want to collect as much history as I can about this branch of my family. Thanks in advance.

[+PFF]

How close to the entrance of the cave were you (in miles)?

 

There are several benchmarks near the cave entrance, but they are not in the data base. The nearest marks in the NGS database are about 2 miles away.

 

I looked in a 5-mile radius but did not see the C-248 mark. There was a "345" series along a railroad. (A-345, B-345, C-345, etc.)

 

Wish I could be of more assistance. Perhaps someone else has some info they can share.....

 

Meanwhile, good luck on finding the family history. It sounds very interesting!

 

-Paul-

[+seventhings]

kentuckygirls -

 

Like, PFF, I tried to find your disk with no good results. There is a C 248 disk in Kentucky, but it's a CGS (NGS) disk, not Interior, and it's about 65 miles southeast of Mammoth Cave.

 

There are gozillions of benchmark disks that are in neither the Geocaching nor NGS databases. I have seen several such Dept of Interior and National Park Service disks. Unfortunately, they are not part of our benchmark hunting world.

 

For your future reference, here's a quick way to research disks: start with the approximate coordinates (handheld GPS or scaled off a topographic map/software). Then, go to the "Find a benchmark" page, and select "Other search options". Among the "other search options" choose "by coordinates". Plug in the approximate coordinates of your mystery disk and hit "Find Benchmarks". The result will be a list of benchmarks by distance from the coordinates you plugged in.

 

Will

[+Airmapper]

Cool Kygirls. I can (or you can) look on a TOPO map and see if it's marked there, that would probably mean it's in the USGS database, which I have learned isn't online. But you can get the info, I'm not sure how to go about it though.

 

If you like, PM me the coords, (or some close by if you didn't mark the spot.) and I'll look in USAPhotomaps and see if it's in there.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

kentuckygirls -

 

The database this site uses has 736,425 survey markers and the database is from (in 2000) the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). Over the years, surveyors have used many agencies' survey markers in projects that involved the submitting of the measurements and forms necessary to include them in the NGS database. This is in addition to actual NGS disks and the disks of the NGS's ancestor, the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. In our survey of benchmark agencies on disks, we do have an example of a NPS disk, although there seems to be very few of them in the NGS database. This example may or may not look like the one you found.

 

Anyway, as seventhings says, there are an untold number (probably hundreds of thousands) of disks other than the ones in the NGS databse. Apparently the disk you found is one of these.

 

The disk you found may be part of a NPS survey of all cavelike features on the Mammoth Park property. It is very unlikely that the details of such disks are on any website. Your best bet would be to personally contact the Park with the number on the disk you found and explain your family assocaition with the spot as the reason you want to know about the disk.

Edited October 23, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[+kentuckygirls]

Here are the coords that I got: N37 14.162, W086 10.860. These are not exact. I only took one set since I only needed to get in the vicinity next time I go. Why is it that the gov. took the time to put out this mark with a unique number and have no way to track it. Seems like there should be some way to find out why its there.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Probably 1/10,000,000 of all government files are on the web. If information on that disk isn't on the web, that's not a signfificant indication that the government has no way to track it.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

The nearest NGS mark is OLLIE about 1 mile NW of the disk you found.

[+Airmapper]

Topo maps didn't show a benchmark there, the park service must have kept the marks info to themselves. The TOPO maps showed everything else, like the hiking trail you took to get there, the altitude of a nearby hill top (798 feet), but no mark.

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

We have not seen the type of disk you describe kentuckygirls. The one thing we have seen here in AZ on NPS lands in the use of paint over or beside the openings to caves and alcoves, esecially those used for prehistoric habitation. They have all been in the Cxxx format. Maybe the NPS has more money to spend at Mammoth Caves and can afford disks.

 

John

[+Kewaneh & Shark]

...Why is it that the gov. took the time to put out this mark with a unique number and have no way to track it.  Seems like there should be some way to find out why its there.

Every survey mark that is set has some sort of corresponding data somewhere. That data is most likely in a field book with the setting surveyor or setting agency, and that data may be published in a public form, but it may not be posted online. There are few public agencies that do post their survey data online, but more agencies are beginning to do so.

 

The particular mark that you found does have a unique number so it, and the data that goes with it, can be tracked. However, the National Park Service is not a surveying agency. It is a government agency that performs surveys in order to help manage its land. With that, the survey data is primarily for internal purposes only and not intended to be in the public domain, even though the intent of the survey, and ultimately the management of the land, is in the public interest.

 

Inquiring at the Park Headquarters may get you some information on who to contact for info, but the survey data would not be kept at the headquarters. I believe it is kept in Washington D.C. (but don't quote me on that). I've only dealt with the NPS as a surveyor once. I worked on some topographic and cadastral surveys within Yosemite NP about 9-10 years ago and we were required to use their established survey control. Getting the data from them was time consuming and working with them was at times excruciating, but the NPS run a tight ship - their parks show proof of that - and the info and data they provided was no exception. If you ask the right people, you may get the info you're looking for.

 

- Kewaneh

[+kentuckygirls]

My uncle has talked to the park historian several times. I will try to give him a call this week and see if he can give me some information. Thanks to all of you for helping me out with this.