sdcfia
Silver Member
Kace, the secret is to find those coins one at a time.
sdcfia- If the template is to be used on the 36 section/range/township parts of our country, and you have some way to figure out which corner to use as a starting point, do you also have a back sight? Were these made by surveyors? I don't know if someone in the mid 19th century who wasn't a surveyor/engineer knew the difference between true and magnetic North. When they wanted to go north they looked at their compass and went where it pointed in most cases. I worked for an outfit that relocated the sections corners in 158 sections in West Central MO. We found about 6% of the org. corner stones that had been set. Not all corners had stone markers, many were wooden posts. They were originally set between 1835 and 1845. I recall finding 3 stones when we dug the hole to set marker for that corner. They were 12-18" down. A lot were wiped out when roads were build down a section line. There were 3 or 4 Original Surveyors that were in the areas I worked. Only one put "hack" marks on a stone. One hack for each mile above the bottom of the township. One closed the last half mile on each section that closed to the East township line ONE LINK OFF. 5 sections, each last half mile one link off. My bet is he ran that last line in his tent. What I'm trying to say is I'd think you'd need to find the exact section or township the template fit to make it work. Not every section is exactly one mile by one mile. Each section in each township is how big the Original Surveyor say's it is. There are several sections in northern Saint Claire County,MO. that are a mile by a mile and a half. Accumulation of error. It is amazing how accurate those O.S.'ers were with the equipment they had. Good luck.
There was definitely a variation in performance by the surveyors of the day - there still is today, for that matter, even with GPS. The mid-19th century Government Land Office surveyors' accuracy varied significantly, but those who were active beginning about 1900 were much better. The US Mineral Surveyors whose work I'm most familiar with (ca 1870-1920) were excellent.
As far as the "KGC" template is concerned, what I've posted about its alleged use is only what I've been told by some smart people about "KGC" lore for the benefit of those who haven't heard the stories before. That doesn't mean those smart people are correct however. My personal opinion is that the widely found "KGC" carved clues, the arcane codes, the templates, etc. may likely be nothing more than disinformation intended to lead nosy searchers astray. If there indeed are "KGC" caches out there, I suspect they are secreted using proprietary methods that guys like us have no way of figuring out. Many caches are likely hidden on land that has no legal access for normal people. There are countless layers of security available to smart people with plentiful resources, and like I said before, there are many ways to fool folks with "treasure clues." I know that many will disagree with me.