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Putnam County, NY get put on the map


Papa-Bear-NYC

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For some time I have noticed (as have a few others) that Putnam County NY has remained white (no recoveries) in Holograph's monthly maps. Putnam has only a bit over 100 stations, mostly along the Hudson River and a few highways. But NO recoveries? It didn't seem right.

 

Yesterday I fixed that!

 

I took the 7:51 from Grand Central to Manitou (a whistle stop which is only used on weekends for hikers). About a half hour later Putnam had it's first GC/NGS recovery: ROCk (LX1095) a tri-station on a little strip of land between the railroad and the river about a mile north of the bear mountain bridge.

 

b8060015-c63f-414b-b486-63e1c62a8c0c.jpg

 

1dc98d96-a788-4461-9e6f-4e5d5f3cff83.jpg..2acc2d7f-2a1d-4abe-be07-ffe101937157.jpg

 

Then I made a side trip to Westchester County and bagged the stations on the top of Anthony's Nose. Then it was back to Putnam and I worked my way up to Garrison, bagging 3 intersection stations, a tidal bench mark, and 3 more tri-stations. One other tri-station was not found - too much in the way of vegetation (mostly brambles) along the shore and one more I didn't try for that was on private property (What part of No Trespassing don't you understand?). I skipped the bench marks along the tracks (except for the one tidal station) since 1) so much track work done over the years would make for a low recovery rate and 2) it's an active line and the trains go by fast (passenger trains on welded rail)!

 

I caught the 5:04 from Garrison back to the City and was home in time for dinner.

 

Adding in the Reference marks with separate PIDs (of which there were 7, one a DNF) for the day it was 3 for Westchester (2 Founds, 1 Destroyed) and 16 for Putnam (14 Founds and 2 Not Founds). I think I got the numbers right.

 

Folks, say hello to Putnam County, newest kid on the block!

Edited by Papa-Bear-NYC
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Putnam is near enough to a major city (and several active benchmarkers) that it's surprising no one had reported any marks there to NGS before this.

 

Which gets me wondering: which other 'white' counties are surprising for their, ahem, virginity?

 

Taking a look at Holograph's map, I noticed some white counties around Atlanta, including neighboring Forsyth and nearby Clarke (Athens).

 

What do you notice?

 

-ArtMan-

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Unusual Tidal Bench Mark Disk

 

I just noticed something very interesting about the Tidal Bench Mark I found yesterday on my Putnam County quest. Look at this

 

TIDAL 3 (LX1097)

 

550036d9-653e-452a-8034-cd6426eb251e.jpg

 

On the left side it says "LEVEL" then in small print "GRAPHIC STATION"

 

If you look carefully, under the word level it says "HYDRO" which had evidently been stamped over by "LEVEL". So the original stamping was "HYDROGRAPHIC STATION". I don't recall seeing that before.

 

Here's a "Normal" one (from 1942) where it just says "BENCH MARK":

 

TIDAL 4 STA I 39 (KU324)

 

803d6b2f-3348-4f36-9e95-784e719176ea.jpg

 

And here's a real old one (from 1913) which also says "BENCH MARK"

 

844 7930 TIDAL 7 (LW1577)

 

08345ba8-c612-4c21-998d-44a9765462b3.jpg

 

Has anyone else ever seen a disk marker "HYDROGRAPHIC STATION"

 

Is this a new one for the disk logo list? I'd love to know the date. It just says "UNK".

 

Any of the NGS guys ever see one like this? DaveD? GEL?

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What do you notice?

I notice:
  1. that in the western third of the country there are very large counties (averaging 10-20x as large?) compared to the other 2/3 of the country. I doubt all the counties in the east are 10-20x as densely poplulated with marks.
  2. there are about 1000 counties that have less than 100 marks, so they will never be dark red.
  3. Alaska has a green hat
  4. the most color is in the NE and SW

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PapaBear:

Yes, I believe that I have also seen & logged a Hydrographic Station. I'll try to dig out the pic & link it here. While looking for that one, I came across a Topographic Station. Only one of those I recall seeing, and it's not USGS either, but is US C&GS. I'm also kind of partial to the station name, as I often go by "Klem" or even sometimes "Clem" (Clem not by choice, though).

 

4b43fe9e-c804-41fc-b71d-7ff2108b763c.jpg

Edited by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama
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Congratulations Papa-Bear! Those are some neat recoveries.

 

This list is taken from the 'Hippo List'.

 

Monumentation Category Monumentation Code Definition

Not for Landmark Stations

O, U A Aluminum marker other than a disk included elsewhere in table

O, U B Bolt

O, U C Cap of cap-and-bolt pair

D DA Astro pier disk

D DB Bench mark disk

D, U DD Survey disk (other agency)

D, U DE Traverse station disk

D DG Gravity station disk

D, U DH Horizontal control disk

D DJ Tidal station disk

D DK Gravity reference mark disk

D DM Magnetic station disk

D, U DO Disk not specified (see description)

D DP Base line pier disk

D DQ Calibration base line disk

D, U DR Reference mark disk

D, U DS Triangulation station disk

D DT Topographic station disk

D DU Boundary marker

D DV Vertical control disk

D DW NOS hydrographic survey disk

D, U DZ Azimuth mark disk

O, U E Earthenware pot

R F Flange-encased rod

O, U G Glass bottle

O, U H Drill hole

R, U I Metal rod

O, U J Earthenware jug

O, U K Clay tile pipe

O, U L Gravity plug

O, U M Ammo shell casing

O, U N Nail

O, U O Chiseled circle

O, U P Pipe cap

O, U Q Chiseled square

O, U R Rivet

O, U S Spike

O, U T Chiseled triangle

O, U U Concrete post (without other marks)

O, U V Stone monument

O, U W Unmonumented

O, U X Chiseled cross

O, U Y Drill hole in brick

O, U Z See description

 

We keep the page in our bookmarks for reference and maybe, we might even use it again for another friendly contest.

 

Shirley~

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Hi, Papa-Bear,

 

I loved your report from Putnam County! You probably don't consider yourself an inspiration

to others, but you are.

 

This past Sunday evening, my wife and I tuned into PBS for one of our favorite shows,

"Simple Living" with Wanda Urbanska (pronounced YOUR-BAN-SKAH).

 

In this segment, Wanda challengened viewers to consider downsizing to only one automobile.

My immediate reaction was, "Ha. I'm not giving up benchmark hunting!" Then you come along

and remind us of how much can be done with NO automobile!

 

Thanks, also, for sharing how you selected which marks to hunt (or not to hunt).

Great wisdom! And a reminder to all of us to use good judgement. After all, it's only a hobby!

 

-Paul-

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Alaska has a green hat

 

Alaska has the misfortune that many of its datasheets don't contain county names, so their recoveries don't get added to the map. There are probably 20-30 recoveries in Alaska that aren't anywhere on the map.

 

edit: Oops, there are actually almost 180 Alaskan recoveries that have no place on the map because there is no county on the datasheet.

Edited by holograph
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Alaska has a green hat

 

Alaska has the misfortune that many of its datasheets don't contain county names, so their recoveries don't get added to the map. There are probably 20-30 recoveries in Alaska that aren't anywhere on the map.

 

edit: Oops, there are actually almost 180 Alaskan recoveries that have no place on the map because there is no county on the datasheet.

 

Something else I noticed about Alaska is that there are no 'scaled' benchmarks. They are all adjusted, or at least 99 out of 100 are.

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Alaska has a green hat

 

Alaska has the misfortune that many of its datasheets don't contain county names, so their recoveries don't get added to the map. There are probably 20-30 recoveries in Alaska that aren't anywhere on the map.

 

edit: Oops, there are actually almost 180 Alaskan recoveries that have no place on the map because there is no county on the datasheet.

I am constantly impressed by the wealth of information provided in the forums. You've answered every question this newby has had, including why the Alaska marks weren't showing up. It never dawned on me that the missing county information was the answer. I probably already know the answer to this one but is there anything we can do to rectifying the problem?

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Don't know if this will help with the coloring of the map, but Alaska calls its counties, boroughs. Here is a map showing the boroughs.

 

Alaska_boroughs_and_census_areas.png

 

The NGS datasheets do list boroughs on some of them. Where the datasheet would normally list the county is where the borough information is located when it is used. Maybe that can be used to fill-in the map.

 

John

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Unfortunately, no, it's not much help. Although some Alaskan datasheets do have county or borough information, the majority do not -- they have nothing but the state and the USGS quad on them. Here's the list of PIDs that have been recovered by Geocachers but which do not show on the map.

 

I don't have the time to create a process to do special handling of these, just FYI for anyone tempted to manually find homes them. Some day I'll automate a process in the GIS software to find the counties.

 

TT0212 TT0448 TT0679 TT0780 TT0844 TT0897 TT0932 UV4344 UW7478

TT0213 TT0449 TT0703 TT0781 TT0844 TT0898 TT0935 UV4379 UW7498

TT0234 TT0450 TT0721 TT0791 TT0846 TT0900 TT0977 UV4436 UW7503

TT0235 TT0508 TT0722 TT0792 TT0847 TT0901 TT1274 UV4579 UW7512

TT0237 TT0511 TT0723 TT0794 TT0847 TT0907 TT1278 UV4580 UW7561

TT0257 TT0512 TT0728 TT0795 TT0848 TT0908 TT1296 UV5642 UW7581

TT0257 TT0513 TT0730 TT0796 TT0863 TT0909 TT1427 UV5696 UW7642

TT0315 TT0514 TT0739 TT0797 TT0864 TT0912 TT1442 UV5697 UW7643

TT0319 TT0523 TT0740 TT0801 TT0869 TT0914 TT1444 UV5800 UW7737

TT0320 TT0546 TT0741 TT0806 TT0872 TT0918 TT1452 UW5498 UW7833

TT0342 TT0552 TT0743 TT0807 TT0873 TT0920 TT1508 UW5511 UW7833

TT0380 TT0617 TT0745 TT0808 TT0874 TT0921 TT1513 UW5913 UW7835

TT0396 TT0652 TT0748 TT0829 TT0874 TT0922 TT1565 UW5925 UW7857

TT0400 TT0653 TT0749 TT0834 TT0878 TT0923 TT2559 UW5926 UW7862

TT0418 TT0668 TT0751 TT0835 TT0878 TT0923 TT2772 UW5983 UW7871

TT0419 TT0670 TT0760 TT0835 TT0884 TT0925 TT3229 UW6140 UW7880

TT0420 TT0671 TT0762 TT0842 TT0884 TT0930 TT3768 UW7079 UW7894

TT0421 TT0672 TT0765 TT0842 TT0889 TT0930 TT6711 UW7403 UW8171

TT0445 TT0677 TT0766 TT0843 TT0895 TT0931 TT6712 UW7427

TT0446 TT0679 TT0766 TT0843 TT0896 TT0931 UV0630 UW7428

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Because of the large geographic size of Alaska's boroughs, won't many (most?) quads be located entirely within one borough? If so, the USGS QUAD line would seem likely to locate at least some of the marks missing borough info. That said, I'm not trying to make any extra work for holograph - he does enough! - but it might be an interim, partial solution.

 

-ArtMan-

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