Mike D. wrote:
> there still remained the mystery of what the initial
monument may have initialized
> perhaps it was just a preliminary mayayu
> or in other words a proto paleo lamaya
> & thus initial only in the chronological
sense & no longer in the border
marking sense
> having subsequently been revised & trumped
by the corner number 1 marker
> which along with corners 2 & 3 & perhaps
others was presumably set exactly on the 34th parallel
> notwithstanding precedence
I concur in part and dissent in part. (I've always
wanted to say that!)
Arizona Revised Statutes specify the boundary
between La Paz County and its eastern neighbors Yavapai and
Maricopa as "the meridian line one hundred thirteen degrees twenty
minutes west longitude, as defined by the Atwood survey of 1918." The
Maricopa-Yavapai boundary is "the thirty-fourth parallel north latitude, as
defined by the Thompson survey of 1924."
Thus, the north-south line was in place before the east-west
line. I suspect that the Initial Monument was the preliminary point
on Atwood's meridian that Thompson chose from which to begin his
measurements. His final answer would have been marked by Corner Number
1. However, the latter point is not a modern
exactitude notwithstanding precedence.
I note, interestingly, that Monument Number 3, which you
found, is shown as a rectangle; whereas the trio of missing
marks at and near the county tripoint are shown as triangles. I don't
have a key to the USGS's map symbols (and neither TopoZone nor TerraServer seem
to provide us one), but this might mean something. Can anyone elucidate us
as to the difference?
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana,
USA