Post by Brent George on Jun 12, 2015 4:10:53 GMT
For those that have access to Surveying+Spatial Issue 82...
With apologies to David Goodwin…
…an epilogue to “The Story of Shaky City” published in Surveying+Spatial Issue 82 June2015
Before the rangitira could resolve a winner of the Emersons, from under a rock a fourth Surveyor emerged. His name was Prag Matic and he had been asleep during the rangitira’s announcement of the definition challenge.
Prag had been – in a former life – a wizened old lands and survey surveyor and worshipped the tried and true hierarchy of evidence. So much so that he had the hierarchy in pride of place on his mantle at home, (next to the 100year old peg he had found and replaced in his younger days, and a cadastral definition award from his Institute peers). On the mantle in number one position was a natural boundary; next to an original and undisturbed monument, followed by some old and undisputed occupation, an abuttal, and some mathematical evidence being the poor cousin of the hierarchy.
When Prag was appraised of the quest, he promptly recalled his early graduate days in Napier and then in Edgecumbe where he had worked during and after their times as rock ’n roll cities. He remembered that after those events the best intentions and suggestions from the wise old heads from out of town were just not workable. So the definition efforts were placed solely on his beloved hierarchy - and the least square tables, and fancy-pant calculators, and random-number coordinate generating devices were consigned to the ever-growing asbestos laden cadastral rulebook scrapheap in the neighbouring town.
Prag shook off the hangover borne out of the last contest he had won (a fine pallet of Harrington’s Pig and Whistle), and shouted “Thou should never forget the first principles of the hierarchy of evidence”.
He went on to pronounce “Thou should also consider what is important to the landed owner of the property previously described in the cadastral record. They will consider their boundaries and appurtenances to be where they always thought they had been – that is between the fences that still remain in place, astride the crumbling ruins of their abode and behind the wee nib-wall separating the cricket pitch or front lawn from the pedestrian tarmac of the path and roadway. If, based on our clever-dick mathematical calculations, we go and place a flash new plastic peg with nail some 457mm from an old and upright white-topped wooden peg and match this at the next corner with another new mark some 312mm from a stout old corner post that has been there since Ritchie’s grandfather laced up his rugger boots (and was depicted on an old colour plan too) – we will be laughed out of the Cosmopolitan Club.”
He concluded “We must remain cognisant of the monuments and occupation evidence that are left behind, and use our detective and analytical skills to weigh up all the evidence before recording the observations and information within the records that, along with our thorough report, will save us from undue scrutiny at a future time. It is my contention that boundaries can move with the land, and so we should record where they have got to – before they wander agin (in a nod to his Scottish Granddad). If the rangitira and his aides indicate that that is not what the law dictates, then perhaps the law should be changed.”
When Prag had finished the rangitira – somewhat taken aback by this bolshy interloper – scratched his chin and announced meekly “I think I have a winner….”