Please see my five numbered insertions below.
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "aletheiak" <aletheiak@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 9:49 PM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] lamaya etc conclusion was Re: fresh algatn report by
new players on a 7 point roll
>
>
> comments hastily inserted as the library is closing
>
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
> <mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> > 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!)
>
> bravo
> but what does it mean
(1) That's what Supremes often say in their opinions that dissent only in part
from a majority opinion. In this case, I concur in your characterizing the
Initial Monument as "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," but I dissent in your
characterization of the other monuments as "presumably set exactly on the 34th
parallel notwithstanding precedence."
> > 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.
>
> good good good & yes yes yes
> so far as i understand you
> but do you really think it was just chance that these 2 initial
> monuments were 50 yards apart in such a vast desert
> yikes
> & that the later one was not a revision of the earlier one
(2) I do mean that Corner Number 1 is a revision of the Initial monument, but
not an exact modern revision. I conjecture that Thompson probably established
both--the former as a working station, and the latter as the official tripoint.
What I mean is that Thompson could have surveyed along Atwood's line to the
approximately correct distance from some other known point and set his initial
point there. He could have then started his astronomical work at measured
distances north and south of that point in order to close in on whatever he
determined to be the 34th parallel specified in the then-current statutes. Keep
in mind that the now-current statutes are revised. Even the boundary statutes
for Maricopa and Yavapai mention La Paz, which did not exist until 1983, but
they still specify the Atwood and Thompson lines of 1918 and 1924 respectively.
If they intended to resort to the exact 34th parallel as measured by some modern
or future survey, they would say so. No, they intend that Atwood's and
Thompson's lines be recovered by future surveyors to the maximum extent
possible.
> note too that they are not even in perfect meridional alignment on
> the topo
(3) I had not noticed this. Upon close examination of a zoomed-in map, I can
see what you mean, but I think this is an artifact of a slight mismatch of the
two sheets. (Remember that the cut line runs between the two triangle symbols.)
You can see the mismatch very clearly in the red section line just east of the
county line.
> so the revision may actually have been of both latitude & longitude
> tho that will be of no consequence if both markers are as lost as i
> believe they are
>
> indeed the atwood survey may live on now only in the arizona revised
> statutes
> ironically enough
> since i cant find any other evidence of it on the topos
> nor anywhere else
>
> myself i still completely concur with myself in the above conjecture
> pending any more on atwood anyway
>
> but perhaps a county formation chronology will help settle this too
(4) What we do have is a chronology of surveys. The Mohave-Yavapai boundary
(farther north) was surveyed as 113°20' in 1908 (during territorial times) by a
surveyor unnamed in the revised statutes. It terminates on the Santa María
River at the southeast corner of Mojave. Atwood began at that point in 1918 and
carried the same meridian southward all the way to MXUS. In 1924, Thompson
surveyed four line segments (two parallels and two geodesics) of the
Maricopa-Yavapai boundary. All of the now-current revised statutes specify
these lines as surveyed back then in 1908, 1918, and 1924.
> > 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?
>
> squares on borders generally mean border monuments
>
> triangles mean a variety of other reference points
> sometimes marked by disks pipestems pins cairns etc
> but i have often found them unmarked by anything so obvious
>
> with the benefit of hindsight
> triangles on a border should have alerted me to the possibility that
> the named markers were lost
(5) If all markers are indeed lost except for Monument Number 3, then future
surveyors would have to replicate this particular one of Thompson's segments by
surveying east and west from it, modern exactitude as to the 34th parallel
notwithstanding.
>
>
>
> > Lowell G. McManus
> > Leesville, Louisiana, USA
>
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