PLSO The Oregon Surveyor November December 2020

13 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon |  www.plso.org Featured Article continues on page 14 T sampling of the sheer number of detective shows on television, we can deduce from the popularity of detectives and the de- tective model of our profession could be a smart way to aim our outreach efforts. I would like each of you to take a good look at the tasks you do every day and think about whether your job is more about detective work or more about mathemat- ics. In order to bid a job, youmust first do the research to detect any hidden com- plications with the job, so we are doing detective work in going through deeds, survey records, aerial photographs, GIS topographical maps, Google street view, and plat records. When we are in the field we are doing detective work in searching for monuments, looking critically at oc- cupation of property, getting eyewitness accounts of thehistory of theproperty from that old geezer who has little better to do with his time, searching for remnants of old wire fences, and a whole host of oth- er tasks, which I categorize as detective work. Of course there is math involved, but I would say the average cadastral surveyor’s job is 90% detective work and 10 percent mathematics. This balance is so tilted in favor of detective work that when I hire new crew member, I would pick someone whowouldmake a good de- tective over someone who I thought was a promising mathematician every time. Perhaps reflection uponwhat professional surveyors find most exciting and interest - ing in our profession will provide insight as to how we ought to be selling our pro- fession. Frommy own experience, one of themost fascinating projects of my career was locating the end of a mill rush for the Mulino Flour Mill, which several surveys and deeds were based upon. Themill rush no longer exists and there are absolutely no monument ties to the mill rush. I first had to figure out what a mill rush was. A mill rush is a flume in a creek which channels high speed water to the bottom of a paddle wheel, which in turn spins the millstones to grind grain into flour. Knowing that I am probably look - ing for a concrete U-shaped structure, I visited the county historical museum and was able to get several digitized photo- graphs of the Mulino Mill, which actually showed the mill rush. Using those photo- graphs, our crews were able to find rough locations of where the photographs were taken, and using those photographs we were able to get some lines from several perspectives which gave us rough angles which we could roughly turn out. By inter- secting lines from different perspectives we thenwere able to dig some potholes in the ground and actually find the concrete floor of the mill rush, and from there we could find the end of the mill rush, which is the the beginning point of several deeds. This was nothing but detective work and it was also pretty satisfying to hit concrete several feet down based on some pretty imprecise methods. Of course, all of you have your own sur- veying detective stories, and I encourage all of you to share these stories with young people who are looking into surveying as a profession. The satisfaction of solving a true mystery is something I hope ev- ery surveyor imparts on their field crews, those they mentor, and those who they give a ride-along adventure. I am always amazed at the enthusiasm that one can generate by showing a high school stu- dent who is doing a job shadow when they use a map they researched online, the magnetic locator, and a shovel to find a monument which was set 50 years ago. When the shovel hits the iron pipe, you can see it on the face of the young individual that they just did something pretty cool. The Watson and the Holmes Method As an illustration of the difference between mathematical versus detective models of solving problems, I am going to offer this real-world example of a survey I had to deal with, and I will offer you the opportu - nity to test your detective prowess. Think of it as a puzzle. Please take a fewminutes to flip the page (page 14), look at and an - alyze the map, and I will ask a question to test your powers of deductive reasoning. This map is a rough recreation of a sur- vey that was conducted in 1976, which is a retracement of a plat which was filed in 1964. I modified the survey drawing a little bit so that you wouldn’t be able to identi- fy the surveyor because we don’t want to embarrass the dead guy. Now that you have reviewed themap, the question is: What was the recorded deed distance be- tween the west quarter corner of Section 1 and the southwest corner of Lot 1 on the vesting deed in 1964 when the plat was created? Please be exact. At first sight, it looks like the surveyor of thismapwent intoaplat and foundoriginal plat monuments which were set correctly for north-south position, but they did not fit east and west. Perhaps the surveyor assumed there was an error in the orig- inal surveyor’s work and he was simply correcting a long-standing problem. To me, calling out a large number of origi- nal plat monuments is akin to changing a light bulb by having one person hold- ing the light bulb and getting a thousand people to rotate the house. So is there an- other much more plausible explanation? I believe there is enough information on this map to correctly deduce what the er- ror was and how it was made. Is That It? Let me give you a hint: The rough aver- age distance of the fallings of the original plat monuments is 3.6 feet. Of course, all of you have your own surveying detective stories, and I encourage all of you to share these stories with young people who are looking into surveying as a profession. The satisfaction of solving a true mystery is something I hope every surveyor imparts on their field crews