| Restoration of Lost Corners |
| The rules for the restoration of lost corners should not be applied until all original and collateral evidence has been developed. When these means have been exhausted, the surveyor will turn to proportionate measurement, which harmonizes surveying practice with legal and equitable considerations. This plan of relocating a lost corner is always employed unless outweighed by conclusive evidence of the original survey. The preliminary retracements show the discrepancies of courses and distances between the original record and the findings of the retracement. The retracement is based upon the courses and distances of the original survey record, initiated and closed upon known original corners. Temporary stakes for future use in the relocation of all lost corners are set when making the retracements. Existing original corners may not be disturbed. Consequently, discrepancies between the new measurements and the measurements shown in the record have no effect beyond the identified corners. The differences are distributed proportionally within the several intervals along the line between the corners. The retracements will show various degrees of accuracy in the lengths of lines, where in every case it was intended to secure true horizontal distances. Until after 1900 most of the lines were measured with the Gunter's link chain. Such a chain was difficult to keep at standard length, and inaccuracies often arose in measuring steep slopes by this method. All discrepancies in measurement should be carefully verified with the object of placing each difference where it properly belongs. Whenever it is possible to do so, the manifest errors in measurement are removed from the general average difference and placed where the blunder was made. The accumulated surplus or deficiency that then remains is the quantity that is to be uniformly distributed by the methods of proportionate measurement. A proportionate measurement is one that gives equal relative weight to all parts of the line. The excess or deficiency between two existent corners is so distributed that the amount given to each interval bears the same proportion to the whole difference as the record length of the interval bears to the whole record distance. After the proportionate difference is added to or subtracted from the record length of each interval, the sum of the several parts will equal the new measurement of the whole distance. The type of proportionate measurement to be used in the restorative process will depend on the method which was followed in the original survey. Standard parallels will be given precedence over other township exteriors, and ordinarily the latter will be given precedence over subdivisional lines; sections corners will be relocated before the position of lost quarter-section corners can be determined. |
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