very nice jack
bus&ss indicates that the survey of the cimarron meridian in
1881 by chaney actually reiterated an 1874 survey of it by major
so it is doubly surprising that neither major nor chaney seems to
have determined the intersection of their line with the 37th
parallel line that had been established & reiterated by johnston
clark macomb since 1857
but that not until 1890 did anyone namely preston even find the
point where these overlapping perpendiculars communicated
amazing
like ships passing in the night as well as lost in the desert
or can you or albert white give some better explanation for this
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "jparsell" <jparsell@n...> wrote:
> The attached map covers both CO-NM-OK and NM-OK-TX. This
message
> pertains only to the upper half of the map, CO-NM-OK. The
> pictures are of the Preston Monument at the tripoint plus one of
> the Chaney Monument. Pictures were taken on Sept. 19 and
20, 2002.
>
> In 1857, the southern boundary of Kansas Territory was
surveyed by
> a party under the command of Lt. Col. Joseph E. Johnston of
the
> U.S.Army. The astromomer for the party was John H. Clark.
Clark
> measured west from the west boundary of Missouri along the
37th
> parallel and set a monument calculated to be on 103 deg.
00'W.
> This became known as the Johnston Monument. Later Clark
determined
> that the monument was too far west.
>
> In 1859 Capt. J. N. Macomb was directed to correct the error
and he
> erected a new marker known as the Macomb Monument
farther east on the
> 103rd meridian. Macomb was still too far west as determined
by Levi
> S. Preston in 1890. Preston had been directed to determine
the true
> positions of the Johnston and Macomb monuments and to
establish the
> northeast corner of New Mexico. The Preston Monument was
later determined
> to be at Lat. 37deg 00'00."473 N., Long. 103deg 00'06."631 W.,
NAD 1927.
>
> In 1881 Richard O. Chaney and William W. Smith surveyed the
Cimarron
> Meridian on the 103rd Meridian from the 36deg 30' to 37deg
parallel.
> They erected a corner monument on the 37th N Latitude and
103rd W
> Longitude which is gray sandstone 12"x12"x6.5' set 3.5' in the
ground
> marked Colorado on North face, 103WL on South face, 37NL
on East face
> and 1881 on West face. This is known as the Chaney
Monument and is
> located about 300 yds north of the Preston tripoint marker.
>
> Source of most of this information is C. Albert White's book,
> "Initial Points of the Rectangular Survey System," Produced for
> Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado, Inc. by The
Publishing
> House, P.O. Box 215,Westminster, CO 80030. Price is $96
including
> S & H. It is intended for surveyors and is not easy reading, but
> has a wealth of information on the early surveys. Mr White
comments
> that from his research it became obvious that the
determination of
> longitude was a difficult task prior to the advent of telegraph
> lines and accurate time. Observations made over a period of
more than
> a month on the moon, stars and Jupiter gave results that were
close
> but not precise. Observations of lunar culminations over a
period of
> about two months gave results that were not as accurate and
resulted in
> larger errors in longitude.
>
> Mr. White has visited all of these monuments, but I visited only
the
> Chaney and Preston markers. To the west it is rough terrain
with no
> good roads. With a 4W drive or ATV they could probably be
reached
> fairly easily.
>
> Part III will be concerned with NM-OK-TX and will be coming
soon.
>
> Jack