PLSO The Oregon Surveyor November December 2020

14 Vol. 43, No. 6 The Oregon Surveyor  | Featured Article Perhaps another hint is needed. 3.6 is evenly divisible by .09 (nine hundredths). Warning! Educational Material Ahead! So why does an error which is divisible by nine hundredths, nine tenths, or nine feet become significant? Because there is a mathematical truism that any trans- position of two digits which are next to each other will result in an error which is evenly divisible by nine. As an exam- ple, if you typed in 43 and you meant to type in 34, the difference in the er - ror will be nine. If you typed in 1594 and you meant to type in 1954, the dif- ference is 360 which is evenly divisible by 9. In our example, we are getting a consistent error of 3.6 feet. The only com- bination of transposed numbers which will give an error of 3.6 feet is 2.6 feet and 6.2 feet. If you will look at the map, you will see that the southwest corner of Lot 1 is listed as 142.65 feet east of the west quarter corner of Section 1. A good detective would deduce that there was probably a scrivener’s error in en- tering this number onto the map, and the distance of 146.25 feet is probably the correct distance if one were to go back through the chain of deeds. The transposition of numbers is just a reasonable deduction of the facts at hand, but just a bit more detective work was required. After researching the deed that was in place at the time this plat was filed, it was discovered that the deed distance between the quarter corner and the southwest corner of Lot 1 was indeed 146.25 feet and the digits 2 and 6 were simply transposed. These types of riddles are just amazing- ly cool stuff. Each morning that I drive to the office brings the possibility that I am going to have the opportunity to solve another mystery. These types of detective puzzles are what makes my job so fun, interesting, and challenging. I hope all of you see these types of chal- lenges as exciting and intriguing puzzles, and if you do, then perhaps sharing the challenges of being a land detective is something that you should share with your field crews and those peoplewhom you meet that are considering a job in the surveying profession.  x continued from previous page T