24 continued Photo 2. Cross-staff head and compass originally with horsehair sighting vanes. Handmade kaleidoscopes in the background. Photo 3. Fellow surveyor and crew under the Eiffel Tower. The town and shop were a stop during our cruise tour where we were supposed to see kaleidoscopes and visit with the shop owner, Dominic Stora. His work is quite beautiful and everything is handmade. Check it out at kaleidoscopesfrance.com. However, immediately upon entering the shop I spied a large brass instrument with four foot screws and forgot about the kaleidoscopes! Dominic and I immediately struck up a conversation about survey instruments and the rest of the tour group was left to their own devices. After some exploration of the shop to find something that would fit in a carry-on bag, a deal was struck and a French cross-staff head and compass circa 1880 started its journey home to Oregon. [Photo 2] Arriving in Paris, we explored the city and headed off to the Eiffel Tower where we found a survey crew with one member who spoke English. Our brief conversation included discussions of GPS observation times in the U.S., salary ranges, and needs for employees. Turns out, they were part of a team of surveyors mapping the underground tunnels of Paris and happened to be set up there to collect topography under the base of the tower. Our conversation was cut short as I was appropriately threatened to rejoin the honeymoon adventure to the top of the tower or to stay behind and become a French surveyor! [Photo 3] The balance of the trip was spent in Germany and the Netherlands with my son and daughter-in-law, which brings us back to the original question. After much exploring of castles, pubs, and churches, I discovered they live only 15 minutes away from a Drielandenpunt, or Tri-Point international boundary monument for Germany, the Netherlands, and Brussels, which at 323 meters (approximately 1059 feet) also happens to be the highest point in the Netherlands. Away we went to check out yet another survey thing. [Photo 4] Just over 100 years ago, this monument near Vaals, Germany, was actually a Vierlandenpunt, or quadripoint, which included what was then known as Neutral Moresnet, which really wasn’t a country at all. [Photo 5] The no man’s land was formed in approximately 1815–16 as the result of a boundary dispute between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Prussia during the Congress of Vienna. This was prior to the existence of Belgium, and the small sliver of land was highly desirable The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 46, No. 1 The Lost Surveyor
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