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My vacation intersects the Eastern Oblique Arc


Papa-Bear-NYC

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My wife and I just got back from a 10 day vacation to Down East Maine and to the Bay of Fundy. With the myriad of stations in that area I had to be selective in what I went to look for (after all this was a vacation, not a benchmarking trip). I decided to go after two sorts of marks: boundary markers of various sorts, and triangulation stations which where part of the survey for the Eastern Oblique Arc, done in this area in the 1850s. A surprising number of these marks have survived in this area.

 

The idea for the EOA came to me just a week or so before the trip when it came up in a discussion here about depicting triangulation schemes on maps. I was introduced to Holograph's excellent site on this 19th century triangulation. When looking at the maps, I realized 1) the first area in eastern Maine would be right where our travels would take us and 2) many of these stations are still in existence. So of course the plan was "Get 'em all!". I had to rule out three: Grand Manan (on an Island off the coast of Maine in Canada - no information available), St. David (1867) (in Canada - no information available) and Prince Regents Redoubt (1861) (lost long ago - in 1910). That left 6 primary stations. To these 6, I added 2 more: Quoddy (1860) which was in the secondary scheme and Mt. Dessert (1856) which we would visit on our last day (besides this overly-logged mark was a "Gimme"). All but Mt. Desert had the original marks, although two (Calais Observatory and Howard) were believed to be destroyed. I visted them as well just to "make sure".

 

Here's Holograph's map:

 

NE_Terminus_to_Epping_Base.png

 

And here's the web page: EOA Easternmpost section

 

This project took not a little understanding on my wife's part since several of these stations involved lengthy bushwhacks and trips of up to 2 hours (she sat in the car and read a book), and for that I thank her dearly.

 

Here is the list (in order of searches):

 

Trescott Rock (1861) - found, PD0894

Howard (1859) - lost?, P1029

Quoddy (1860) - found, PD0690

Calais (1857) - lost, QF0763

Chamcook (1857) - found, QF0683

Rye (1867) - not found, QF0932

Cooper (1859) - found, PD1041

Mt Desert (1856) - found, PE1778

 

5 founds out of 6 findable marks is pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Snippets of my logs follow. What to do next? Go back of course, get 'em all! :ph34r: Anyone wanna come?

Edited by Papa-Bear-NYC
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Trescott Rock (1861) - found, PD0894

 

This one was on a hill now known as "The Porcupine" which no one in the area had ever heard of. Finally someone told us "Oh, that's on Wayne Jones' Road". This seemed to be the same road described in the 1960 NGS log. I found the road, and the fork, but no trail. So I bushwhack about 1/2 mile through fairly open woods. I scrambled up one false peak before hitting the right peak, which was a rocky pinnacle with 20 foot drop offs on 3 sides, but a way up on the 4th side. The result was great: the 1861 station - good as new (well, almost new) and the 2 reference marks (from the 1930s?) staring me in the face and great views including a siting of Grand Manan Island across the channel.

 

When I got back to the car, there was my wife talking to Wayne Jones, a hard working lobsterman who owned "this side" of the mountain. As usual for Mainers, he was friendly and happy that I had found what I came looking for

 

c6a5c9e9-d53d-4576-82c5-7b859406cc5a.jpg

The mark is a copper bolt surrounded by a triangle cut in the rock with two drill holes towards the SW.

 

Howard (1859) - lost? maybe not, P1029

 

I knew this one had been lost in the late 1950s when the Air Force built a radar dome over the mark, but I just wanted to "check it out" as they say. The Air Force left the site in the 80s and the top of the hill is now used as a prison, so there was no way to visit the site up close.

 

However I'm glad I went since the original radar domes are now long gone and a radar dome of later construction is well to the south of the original station's location (see map and aerial inserts). So maybe, just maybe, the old mark is still there, perhaps under some crumbling concrete. Anyone want to get permission and check it out?

 

87c82a37-d41a-4c42-8b9d-7e27c95c45ed.jpg

The old station is to the south of this newer dome.

 

Quoddy (1860) - found, PD0690

 

This mark is very near the Coast Guard lookout tower (PD0690) on West Quoddy Head, but is seldom visited. To reach the station, climb the gated road to the tower. When you reach the point where the road to the tower turns left, go straight into the woods and bushwhack to the high point. It is not tough going, but there is one rock ledge you must scramble over. A GPS would help. When you reach the clearing at the high point, the station will be found in the center of a small ring of rocks (see photo). This is fortunate, since the area is covered by a thick layer of moss and lichen and a good bit of digging would be needed to find the station if it were not so marked.

 

The copper bolt is in good condition, with a large punch hole in its center. The two reference marks (set in 1935) were also found in good condition.

 

This station was not in the primary scheme for the Eastern Oblique Arc, but was one of the many secondary stations set in the 1850s and 1860s. As luck would have it, we parked at the old Coast Guard Station (now a lodging) and in the office, an old chart showing the Coast Survey triangulation of the area was sitting on the wall. The owner is a history buff! What a coincidence.

 

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The bolt surrounded by rocks

 

Calais (1857) - lost, QF0763

 

I knew this mark was lost, but I visited the site anyway as I was passing through since it was important both as a primary station in the Eastern Oblique Arc and as a point important in establishing accurate longitude in North America. See this link for an account of the setting of the commemorative disk at the site by NOAA in 2005: NOAA Web Site

 

To quote from that web site: On December 16, 1866, the Calais Observatory marked the final piece of the first successful transatlantic telegraphic longitude determination. This was a tremendous advance for the transfer of accurate time across the Atlantic Ocean. It provided for the precise determination of longitude at the Harvard Observatory in Massachusetts, relative to Britain's Greenwich Observatory ...

 

Interestingly, when I asked at the Tourist Information Office for directions to the old Calais Observatory, the woman had never heard of it even though she had lived there all her life. After finding the station and taking my photos, I returned to tell her. She recalled a group had come about two years before and did some sort of dedication. They renamed the vacant lot "Meridian Park", but the name, and the visit has quickly disappeared from local knowledge. Now it's just "That pile of rocks behind the nursing home".

 

db99d83e-96d5-4058-976a-b3330a7c7c03.jpg

Remnants of the old observatory

 

Chamcook (1857) - found, QF0683

 

This mark especially intrigued me since 1) it was a primary station of the Eastern Oblique Arc, 2) it was in Canada and therefore 3) it is seldom visited by US benchmark hunters. It was just by luck that the Deer Island Ferry was not running which necessitated us driving up to the Calais border crossing and spending the night at Saint Andrews by the Sea. A lovely little town in a beautiful spot at the head of Passamaquoddy Bay.

 

There is an old road the leaves from behind the Rossmount Inn, a very expensive restaurant and Inn, and leads right to the summit. So there was no trouble whatsoever in getting to the location of Chamcook.

 

Finding the mark was something else. After reaching the summit clearing, I checked the rock ledge at the highest point, and immediately found a drill hole. This is RM1 (there used to be a disk set in the hole). This is an important starting point. The next thing I did was to inspect the ledge around the high point. I soon found a copper plug NW of RM1 (towards the picnic table). I checked carefully and it was stamped 091006, which according to the 1985 recovery was RM5.

 

Now with two marks and some bearings from the NGS log I went in search of the station. There was a distance for RM1 but not for RM5 so it took a few false starts to get the right area. I used both compass and GPS to get bearings to the station. After a bit of digging and checking bearings, I realized the station was behind a couple of small trees in another small clearing.

 

Everything in this spot was covered by moss and dirt so it took quite a while to scrape it away and search. Finally I found one drill hole, and then a second one. The log said the station had 4 drill holes around the copper plug, so with an assumption as to which side I was on, I zeroed in on the station. Finally I found it, cleverly hidden in a square depression about 3 inches deep covered by dirt and moss. The depression was probably carved out for the mark. Eventually I found a third drill hole, but not the 4th.

 

This find was one of the most rewarding for me, especially since it was so far from the beaten path, and that it was the original 1857 mark from the primary scheme of the EOA.

 

6145d071-5028-439b-8be1-2278a79ac6af.jpg

The station and two of the drill holes

 

Rye (1867) - not found, QF0932

 

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.

 

I had set a waypoint at the car, a good thing since this featureless place would be an easy place to get lost in. I used that old road to save some of the worst bushwhacking going down, but alas it too decided to go off who knows where, so I ended up bushwhacking back most of the way back.

 

A disappointing trek. Tough going both up and down with no reward. Some days are like that.

 

84a13c10-dafa-4fde-866b-e12134e25119.jpg

The clearing near the summit.

 

Cooper (1859) - found, PD1041

 

Still smarting from my experience on Rye Hill, we drove 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: Rye with .6 miles of brambles and no mark; Cooper a drive up with the mark literally jumping out to greet you.

 

I was happy to get Cooper. It was a veritable hub for the triangulation of eastern Maine. 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 I got to Bar Harbor that I realized that Cooper RM1 had it's own PID with directions, accurate latitude and longitude (i.e. it was GPSable), 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!

 

b738c7de-217c-45cf-9c1c-3fe2910e929d.jpg

There was paint around the mark which would indicate it still gets some use

 

Mt Desert (1856) - found, PE1778

 

This one was a "Gimme", one that was often logged and easy to get to.

 

We got to Bar Harbor around 4:00 PM and checked into our motel. We figured we had just enough time to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain, bag the mark, bag some views, and with luck, bag the sunset before heading into town for dinner.

 

Well, I did bag the mark(s), we did bag some views, and we most certainly bagged d beautiful sunset. And dinner was scrumptious (loved that local brew!).

 

A great way to end a great vacation..

 

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Much nicer than a shot of the a plain old triangulation disk, don't you think?

Edited by Papa-Bear-NYC
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congrats on your finds and your patient wife.

 

I have a question - why is it that there are ref. disks pointing in the direction of the mark - and the mark itself is just a bolt? What gives there?

The bolt is the original mark from the 1850s. Typically there were drill holes around it which served as range markers, in other words they pointed to other stations. In the 1930s the CGS probably found some of these old marks harder and harder to find, so they put reference disks nearby. But it's normal pratice to keep an old mark which is still intact in place, and not dig it up and replace it with a disk. The result is you have an 1850s copper bolt with a couple of 1930s reference disks pointing to it. The amazing this is so many of these 150 year old copper bolts are still in good condition. Funny situation on Chamcook Mtn (QF0683). The copper bolt from 1957 is still fine but the reference mark disk (probably set in the 1930s) is gone!

 

In the case of Mt Desert which now does have a disk, the old station was just another drill hole, not a copper plug. One of the surveyors in the 1930s spent 3 summers sorting out all the drill holes on the top of Cadillac Mountain (Mt. Desert) and determined which hole was the station. So a disk got put in there (and the name changed to Mt. Desert reset). Read the NGS log for that station (PD01778 datasheet). It's amazing how those guys did so much work to make sure these marks survived and were properly identified.

Edited by Papa-Bear-NYC
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What an excellent trip and report! Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

Grand Manan was probably not a real mark. The dashed lines indicate that angles were observed from the other stations to it, but no reverse angles were measured from it to the other stations. In other words, it was an intersection station. That's pretty rare to find in a primary triangulation, but there it is. Somewhere in the ancient records it is probably described.

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... I am glad you took your wife along. ...

Shirley~

Thanks Shirley, But actually it was primarily a vacation, not a benchmark hunting trip. We spent 10 days altogether. 4 days were spent in Canada where we went up to the Bay of Fundy. Except for Chamcook, those Canadian days were benchmark-free. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip, and the weather was consistently excellent. The benchmark hunting was carefully constrained so as not to hijack the vacation.

 

For some non-benchmarking photos, for those who might be interested in Down-East Maine and the Bay of Fundy, check here: Trip photos (click on the thumbs for each day's separate album).

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Good job and Very Interesting!

About 1985 I used one of the reference marks at CHAMCOOK to check a survey we were doing along the border. At the time the road up to the top of the hill was just grass and I had to request permission and then walk up the hill with my survey equipment. See my photo at: http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/theb4205.htm which shows a tripod, an orange PeeWee light (signal for angles) with battery, and two triple prisms for distance measurement. The observer was in Maine.

George

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Good job and Very Interesting!

About 1985 I used one of the reference marks at CHAMCOOK to check a survey we were doing along the border. At the time the road up to the top of the hill was just grass and I had to request permission and then walk up the hill with my survey equipment. See my photo at: http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/theb4205.htm which shows a tripod, an orange PeeWee light (signal for angles) with battery, and two triple prisms for distance measurement. The observer was in Maine.

George

Nice picture. From the looks of it. that would be RM5, the copper plug over by the picnic table. I don't think you'd have a view without some cutting now.
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For those interested in more information about the Eastern Oblique Arc triangulation survey, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey published "Special Publication No. 7" covering the survey. Its now on-line at: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/cgs_specpu...5U35no71902.pdf. It contains photos, drawings, triangulation diagrams, positions, and observational data.

 

In answer to an earlier question about the usage of disks, the USC&GS first started using survey disks about the year 1900.

 

George

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For those interested in more information about the Eastern Oblique Arc triangulation survey, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey published "Special Publication No. 7" covering the survey. Its now on-line at: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/cgs_specpu...5U35no71902.pdf. It contains photos, drawings, triangulation diagrams, positions, and observational data.

...

Thanks for the Link

 

A couple of questions:

 

1) Is there an index somewhere of which CGS publications are now on-line? (I'm sure it's an on-goinmg effort).

2) In your 1985 work on Chamcook:

2a) Was your party the one that did the 1985 recovery in the log on the datasheet?

2b) Using a reference mark as you did, How did you reduce the location to Lat & Long? I assume you did a traverse to the Chamcook station mark, but where did you get an azimuth? Did you use the published value in the datasheet or measure one from some other station?

 

Thanks

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Just in case you or someone else returns for another try, here's the information on Grand Manan that found in NGS Special Pub. 46 - Triangulation in Maine, 1918:

 

PD0674 GRAND MANAN 1861

 

Grand Manan, 1861, 1913

On a high hill on the northwest side of Grand Manan Island, about 3/8 mile east of the shore of Dark Harbor. The hill is covered with a dense growth of timber and brush, and the station is not easily found except by means of the following directions: Ascend the Sinclair Hill on the southeast side of dark Harbor by the road which leads to the old field where the cellar of Sinclair's house can still be found; then follow the path northerly along the edge of the bluff for 1/4 mile to a small clearing, where another old cellar will be found; then proceed east-northeast (magnetic) about 100 paces to the station which is on the northwest part of a small plateau. The ledge on which the station is placed is not at all prominent and is lower than a number of more conspicuous ledges to the eastward. The station is marked by a 3/4 inch drill hold in the center of a triangle which has a drill hole at each apex. A signal at least 50 feet in height would be required at this point in order to avoid heavy cutting of timber.

 

NAD (U.S. Standard Datum) 44 44 53.516 (N) 66 49 53.224 (W)

 

The current datasheet is marked at unpublishable due to lack of description. The coordinates are given as

NAD83 44 44 53.0 (N) 66 49 51.0 (W)

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For those interested in more information about the Eastern Oblique Arc triangulation survey, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey published "Special Publication No. 7" covering the survey. Its now on-line at: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/cgs_specpu...5U35no71902.pdf. It contains photos, drawings, triangulation diagrams, positions, and observational data.

...

Thanks for the Link

 

A couple of questions:

 

1) Is there an index somewhere of which CGS publications are now on-line? (I'm sure it's an on-goinmg effort).

2) In your 1985 work on Chamcook:

2a) Was your party the one that did the 1985 recovery in the log on the datasheet?

2b) Using a reference mark as you did, How did you reduce the location to Lat & Long? I assume you did a traverse to the Chamcook station mark, but where did you get an azimuth? Did you use the published value in the datasheet or measure one from some other station?

 

Thanks

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1. The www site I provided earlier lists the USC&GS Special Publication (SP) number and date but not the title. The USC&GS published about 344 SPs, and all but a few have been scanned and added to the www site. I suggested that the titles be added to the NOAA Library www site and you know what happens when you suggest something - same as volunteering. So, I created a spreadsheet with the SP number, year, title, state, and key words (for searches). This file is now being checked and will hopefully be on the www site in the near future.

 

2a. Yes, the initials at the bottom of the 1985 recovery note are mine. The initials at the top of the page belonged to the head of the Norfolk office from which we were working.

2b. By checking in to this RM, we were only doing a rough check of a third-order survey. We computed the position of the RM by using the azimuth and distance in the description. My magnetic bearing and measured distance were used to check the values in the description to make sure that the azimuth wasn't reversed or some digits transposed.

When performing first-order triangulation, there were cases where one of the RMs were occupied. This occurred when the station mark couldn't be occupied for some reason. Perhaps the station mark was too close to a building or perhaps there were power lines over the mark preventing the erection of a Bilby Tower. When a RM was occupied, a Tower was built over the RM and survey observations made from the Tower. A first-order position was computed for the RM treating it just like the other main-scheme stations.

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1. The www site I provided earlier lists the USC&GS Special Publication (SP) number and date but not the title. The USC&GS published about 344 SPs, and all but a few have been scanned and added to the www site. I suggested that the titles be added to the NOAA Library www site and you know what happens when you suggest something - same as volunteering. So, I created a spreadsheet with the SP number, year, title, state, and key words (for searches). This file is now being checked and will hopefully be on the www site in the near future.

 

2a. Yes, the initials at the bottom of the 1985 recovery note are mine. The initials at the top of the page belonged to the head of the Norfolk office from which we were working.

Thanks. I found the index by backing up the chain in the url. Now I use CGS Special Pubs site.

Yes an index with the titles would help a lot. I found my self looking at each one (which involve some loooooong downloads. Thanks for "volunteering" for this work.

 

Since you were in the 1985 party, what are you thoughts on the RM5 vs RM6 point I raised in my log Chancook GC Log (2nd last paragraph)?

 

And since only RM1 has an accurate distance given in the box score of the datasheet, how did you validate the taped distance for RM5? Did you have other data from the earlier surveys?

 

I always wished I could ask folks who did earlier recoveries "How did you find this? What about such-and-such?" Now's my chance! Seriously, thanks for all the inside information.

 

There's a guy from Maine I occasionally exchange emails with, in the state survey group (Howard Nelson), who also visited Chamcook in the last few years. Interesting guy, always has a wealth of interesting stories.

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-------------------

1. The www site I provided earlier lists the USC&GS Special Publication (SP) number and date but not the title. The USC&GS published about 344 SPs, and all but a few have been scanned and added to the www site. I suggested that the titles be added to the NOAA Library www site and you know what happens when you suggest something - same as volunteering. So, I created a spreadsheet with the SP number, year, title, state, and key words (for searches). This file is now being checked and will hopefully be on the www site in the near future.

 

2a. Yes, the initials at the bottom of the 1985 recovery note are mine. The initials at the top of the page belonged to the head of the Norfolk office from which we were working.

Thanks. I found the index by backing up the chain in the url. Now I use CGS Special Pubs site.

Yes an index with the titles would help a lot. I found my self looking at each one (which involve some loooooong downloads. Thanks for "volunteering" for this work.

 

Since you were in the 1985 party, what are you thoughts on the RM5 vs RM6 point I raised in my log Chancook GC Log (2nd last paragraph)?

 

And since only RM1 has an accurate distance given in the box score of the datasheet, how did you validate the taped distance for RM5? Did you have other data from the earlier surveys?

 

I always wished I could ask folks who did earlier recoveries "How did you find this? What about such-and-such?" Now's my chance! Seriously, thanks for all the inside information.

 

There's a guy from Maine I occasionally exchange emails with, in the state survey group (Howard Nelson), who also visited Chamcook in the last few years. Interesting guy, always has a wealth of interesting stories.

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Wow, you really are expecting a lot from my memory! I'll give it a try. I happened to have 5 sets of slides here in my office from the Summer of 1985 and I just looked at them, but no more photos of CHAMCOOK. I reviewed your comments and the CHAMCOOK description and recovery notes and have to conclude that I may have confused RM5 and RM6 in 1985. I don't recall what description information I had, but I just searched through my Special Publication spreadsheet and found that SP#46 of 1918 "Triangulation in Maine" has a description for CHAMCOOK and CHAMCOOK 2! I will paste these below. Interestingly two drills holes on the azimuth to station COOPER are mentioned. I just did an Inverse computation from CHAMCOOK to COOPER RM1 and got 243 degrees 14 minutes, which is very close to the azimuth to RM4, so one of the two drill holes mentioned in the old description is probably RM4. Our database description expert is out today but on Monday I will ask him to look for more unpublished information on CHAMCOOK. By the way, since you like recovering old stations, have you seen my photos of BUTTERMILK 1833 at: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/founda...e1_spatial.html

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From USC&GS Special Publication No. 46 (1918) “Triangulation in Maine”

Chamcook 2 (New Brunswick, Canada, C. H..B., 1866; 1908).--A drill hole 19 inches

northwest of Chamcook station.

Chamcook (New Brunswick, Canada, A. D. B., 1857; 1908).-On Chamcook Mountain

which is in Charlotte County about 3 1/2 miles north of St. Andrews. The station

is a little south of the summit which is bare, and in a slight depression in the rocky

ledge. It is marked by a copper bolt set in the rock, and four drill holes, each 3 feet

from the station, form a square, the diagonals of which intersect at the station point.

The heliotrope range to the station on Cooper Mountain is marked by two holes drilled

in the rock at distances, respectively, of 35 feet 7 1/4 inches and 72 feet 5 1/4 inches from the station. The nearer drill hole is within a 9-inch triangle cut in the rock.

---------------

Another interesting historical note, the initials ADB in the above description are those of the Coast Survey's second superintendent, Alexander Dallas Bache, see: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/histor...he/welcome.html

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Wow, you really are expecting a lot from my memory! I'll give it a try. I happened to have 5 sets of slides here in my office from the Summer of 1985 and I just looked at them, but no more photos of CHAMCOOK. I reviewed your comments and the CHAMCOOK description and recovery notes and have to conclude that I may have confused RM5 and RM6 in 1985. I don't recall what description information I had, but I just searched through my Special Publication spreadsheet and found that SP#46 of 1918 "Triangulation in Maine" has a description for CHAMCOOK and CHAMCOOK 2! I will paste these below. Interestingly two drills holes on the azimuth to station COOPER are mentioned. I just did an Inverse computation from CHAMCOOK to COOPER RM1 and got 243 degrees 14 minutes, which is very close to the azimuth to RM4, so one of the two drill holes mentioned in the old description is probably RM4. Our database description expert is out today but on Monday I will ask him to look for more unpublished information on CHAMCOOK. By the way, since you like recovering old stations, have you seen my photos of BUTTERMILK 1833 at: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/founda...e1_spatial.html

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From USC&GS Special Publication No. 46 (1918) “Triangulation in Maine”

Chamcook 2 (New Brunswick, Canada, C. H..B., 1866; 1908).--A drill hole 19 inches

northwest of Chamcook station.

Chamcook (New Brunswick, Canada, A. D. B., 1857; 1908).-On Chamcook Mountain

which is in Charlotte County about 3 1/2 miles north of St. Andrews. The station

is a little south of the summit which is bare, and in a slight depression in the rocky

ledge. It is marked by a copper bolt set in the rock, and four drill holes, each 3 feet

from the station, form a square, the diagonals of which intersect at the station point.

The heliotrope range to the station on Cooper Mountain is marked by two holes drilled

in the rock at distances, respectively, of 35 feet 7 1/4 inches and 72 feet 5 1/4 inches from the station. The nearer drill hole is within a 9-inch triangle cut in the rock.

---------------

Another interesting historical note, the initials ADB in the above description are those of the Coast Survey's second superintendent, Alexander Dallas Bache, see: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/histor...he/welcome.html

Thanks. I was just studying the same special publication last night and also concluded that RM4 was probably the Cooper range hole. The old NAD bearing in the report was off by about 15 minutes (242 57 02.82 vs. 243 12) but I saw that was close to the discrepancy with MAGUERREWOC which was also in the box score (282 16 28.6 vs. 282 24 53.1). So that seems indicative. I couldn't find any other stations that aligned with the other holes in that report.

 

As for Buttermilk, that's web site is what got Holtie and I to visit the mark. So thank you. See our reports: Buttermilk. And that initial 1833 report has the initials of none other than Ferdinand Hassler! And the symmetry of the first and latest recovery initials FRH and GEL is not lost on me.

 

Bache of course followed Hassler as a hands-on in-the-field director. It's nice to see an agency where that can still happen.

 

Thanks again for joining our forum and filling in on the details on many of these things.

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Here is a link to a photo of the map from the back pocket of the hard copy of USC&GS Special Publication No. 7, Eastern Oblique Arc of Triangulation. This map and other Special Pub. maps which are mainly oversize were not scanned when the text was scanned. The maps and graphics that were included within the text were scanned.

GEL

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