--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, Brendan Whyte <bwhyte@u...>
wrote:

> An ~15 degree angled proruption of Mineral cty into Nye/Churchill counties
> in Nv.
> Presumably Nye was one of the later-formed counties, and Mineral was left
> with a mine (but no direct access to it) in the proruption?

1861 churchill & esmeralda
1864 nye from esmeralda
1911 mineral from esmeralda

& the proruption is indeed full of mines
so esmeralda may have wanted to keep these in 1864
& mineral may simply have inherited them in 1911

& i say may rather than must
only because i dont know how old the oldest of these mines are
but it seems a good bet your surmise about them is right

however i dont think direct access could have been nearly so much of a
concern in this case as tax revenue

> http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&n=4323592&e=408432&s=200&size=l&symshow=n
>
> Another proruption at an acute angle is Humboldt cty between Pershing and
> Lander.
> http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&n=4494174&e=476706&size=l
> Again, about 15 or 16 degrees. No obvious reason for it.

1861 humboldt & esmeralda
1862 lander from esmeralda
1919 pershing from humboldt

as a general rule
tho your previous example was a rare exception to it
the longer leg of a wye or tee junction is older than the shorter
as is indeed the case with this example
& the reason for the proruption appears to be only the convenience of
following a preexisting township line

so same effect as above but different cause

> But note the
> north-west corner of the angle, which appears to be somewhat curved, and
> not a crisp 90deg angle (north of the word Valley in Buffalo Valley)

the curvature or nibbling down of that corner is owing to the fact that
four mismatched township corners had been fudged together there by the
public land survey

> The highly staggered Lyon-Churchill County boundary is Nv is also
> interesting, as nearly all other Nv county boundaries are straight, even if
> at angles (ie Nye's boundaries). So why the staggers here?

possibly because this was an original 1861 boundary
between these 2 original counties
& therefore didnt involve the slicing up of any other counties

or else simply because there is more than one way to skin a cat
& so given enough cats
more than one way is bound to occur

> http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&n=4343441&e=335443&s=200&size=l
>
> Brendan

& one unsolicited bonus if i may

nye county used to have a completely enclaved county
called bullfrog
but it croaked