On 11/13/17 9:32 AM, Gregory Beat wrote:
I grew up east of the Iowa/Missouri border, so this boundary dispute was
well-known ... and occurred at same time Joseph Smith (Mormons) was at Nauvoo,
IL (1839-1844).
In 2006, the Iowa-Missouri border was investigated with GPS, as much an archeology
project as locating the historic Sullivan & Brown survey markers.
http://www.theamericansurveyor.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_MO-IABoundaryLineInvestigation_Mar-Apr2006.pdf
Iowa-Missouri Border War (1826-1849)
http://iagenweb.org/history/soi/soi32.htm
NOAA’s : National Geodetic Survey (NGS) made news in 2009 when media reported
that the Four Corners monument was in wrong place (by 2.5 miles).
Deseret News
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/705299160/Four-Corners-Monument-is-indeed-off-mark.html
NOAA statement and clarification
https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/INFO/fourcorners.shtml
==
I’m in France and I don’t think that any borders in Europe were defined by
astronomical observation, but in the US I believe that at least some of the
state borders were thus fixed. As a second’s error in time will be about a
nautical mile in US latitudes, I wonder if anyone has measured with GPS, how
good the original surveys were?
Googling "cadastral survey" would be how you'd find out.
There's also a famous case of the border between New Mexico and Colorado
being crooked because of poor surveying, but the monuments define the
border not the words in the laws defining the border.
http://www.denverpost.com/2007/08/02/were-not-so-square-after-all/
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/267/30/case.html
Same with the border between Utah and Colorado.
The increased use of GPS has made it trivial to go out and find a
particular position - but remember - it's the monument that controls the
location and boundary, not the coordinates. My house sits on a lot
where the corners are defined relative to some physical monumentation (a
brass disk nailed to the sidewalk typically,with a dimple in the nail
head) - so as my house gradually drifts north a few cm/year, I don't
have to worry about the line shifting.
Sometimes this "tied to the monument" thing breaks down - and that's
what court cases are made of.
In any case, most of the state boundaries in the western United States
were done with astronomical measurements. Probably using a chronometer
for time, as opposed to using lunar occultation of stars.
The Commissioner of the General Land Office employed Ehud N. Darling, a
surveyor and astronomer, to make this survey. He made the survey in
1868, and filed his field notes in the Land Office. In accordance with
his instructions, he adopted as the northeast corner of New Mexico a
stone monument that had been established by Capt. J. N. Macomb, an Army
Engineer, in 1859, to mark the intersection of the 37th parallel with
the 103d meridian, and, taking this as his beginning point, surveyed and
marked the line of the parallel, as determined by astronomical
observations and calculations for latitude, westwardly to the 109th
meridian, a distance of over 331 miles. ...
Several years later, the Commissioner of the General Land Office
employed John J. Major, a surveyor and astronomer, to survey and mark
the remaining portion of the southern boundary of the Territory of
Colorado, extending along the 37th parallel to the 102d meridian. Major
made this survey in 1874, and marked the line of the parallel between
the Macomb monument and that meridian. The field notes of this survey
were filed in the Land Office and approved by the Commissioner.
and so on over the next 20-30 years
This kind of surveying was hard work: hostile native americans attacking
survey parties, wildlife (lions, bears, etc.). The wildlife problem
wasn't quite as bad as tigers eating surveyors in India doing the Great
Trigonometric Survey.
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