PANTHER 1885

It would have been such a thrill to find this old drill hole station set in 1885. The detail and local color described in the historical to-reach are intriguing, to say the least. Typically when a new station is set in a slightly different location (such as PANTHER 2 nearby), it’s because the original station/setting was either destroyed or couldn’t be found by a survey party. But as we read through the description, it seemed likely in this case that the drill holes would still be evident. There was no indication that they were destroyed or missing; PANTHER 2 was set elsewhere simply because the drill hole station was too close to the edge of the rock to allow for the drilling out and insertion of the disk.

However, these searches do not always proceed as I imagine that they might. At the coordinates we found plenty of large flat rocks, to be sure, but not a single drill hole (and there should have been several in the area). We fought tough blueberry bushes and scrub oak in order to clear the very edges of the rocks, still with no result. A discrepancy between measurements on the datasheets for this mark and PANTHER 2 renewed our hope somewhat, but even with an expanded search we came up empty.

Mark not found.

This second order horizontal control station was searched for but not found. There is at least one inconsistent measurement in the historical descriptions so other possible locations and flat rocks were probed, cleared off and checked. For example, the 1929 description for PANTHER 2 says the new station was set 2.28 meters southwest of PANTHER 1885, and 2.28 meters appears in the “box score” as well. The 1929 recovery for PANTHER 1885 says the new station is about 5 feet away. None of the outcropping rocks near PANTHER 2 exactly fit the locations given. The drill holes used to mark the center of the tripod and the eccentric station, as described in 1885, were also not found.

~Rich in NEPA~