E.B. Holmber & Associates

Units of Measure

Acre - The (English) acre is a unit of area equal to 43,560 square feet, or 10 square chains, or 160 square poles. It derives from a plowing area that is 4 poles wide and a furlong (40 poles) long. A square mile is 640 acres. The Scottish acre is 1.27 English acres. The Irish acre is 1.6 English acres.
Arpent - Unit of length and area used in France, Louisiana, and Canada. As a unit of length, approximately 191.8 feet (180 old French 'pied', or foot). The (square) arpent is a unit of area, approximately .845 acres, or 36,802 square feet.
Chain - Unit of length usually understood to be Gunter's chain, but possibly variant by locale. See also Rathbone's chain. The name comes from the heavy metal chain of 100 links that was used by surveyors to measure property bounds.
Colpa - Old Irish measure of land equal to that which can support a horse or cow for a year. Approximately an Irish acre of good land.
Engineer's Chain - A 100 foot chain containing 100 links of one foot apiece.
Furlong - Unit of length equal to 40 poles (220 yards). Its name derives from "furrow long", the length of a furrow that oxen can plow before they are rested and turned. See Gunter's chain.
Gunter's Chain - Unit of length equal to 66 feet, or 4 poles. Developed by English polymath Edmund Gunter early in the 1600's, the standard measuring chain revolutionized surveying. Gunter's chain was 22 yards long, one tenth of a furlong, a common unit of length in the old days. An area one chain wide by ten chains long was exactly an acre. In 1695 Queen Elizabeth I had the mile redefined from the old Roman value of 5000 feet to 5280 feet in order for it to be an even number of furlongs. A mile is 80 chains.
Hectare - Metric unit of area equal to 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres, or 107,639 square feet.
Hide - A very old English unit of area, a hide was of variable size depending on locale and the quality of the land. It was the amount of land to support a family, and ranged from 60 to 180 acres. After the Norman conquest in 1066 it became standardized at around 120 acres.
Labor - The labor is a unit of area used in Mexico and Texas. In Texas it equals 177.14 acres (or 1 million square varas).
League (legua) - Unit of area used in the southwest U.S., equal to 25 labors, or 4428 acres (Texas), or 4439 acres (California). Also, a unit of length-- approximately three miles.
Link - Unit of length equal to 1/100 chain (7.92 inches).
Morgen - Unit of area equal to about .6309 acres. It was used in Germany, Holland and South Africa, and was derived from the German word Morgen ("morning"). It represented the amount of land that could be plowed in a morning.
Out - An 'out' was ten chains. When counting out long lines, the chain carriers would put a stake at the end of a chain, move the chain and put a stake at the end, and so on until they ran "out" of ten stakes.
Perch - See pole .
Point - A point of the compass. There are four cardinal points (North, South, East, West), and 28 others yielding 32 points of 11.25 degrees each. A survey line's direction could be described as a compass point, as in "NNE" (north northeast). To improve precision, the points would be further subdivided into halves or quarters as necessary, for example, "NE by North, one quarter point North". In some areas, "and by" meant one half point, as in "NE and by North".
Pole - Unit of length and area. Also known as a perch or rod. As a unit of length, equal to 16.5 feet. A mile is 320 poles. As a unit of area, equal to a square with sides one pole long. An acre is 160 square poles. It was common to see an area referred to as "87 acres, 112 poles", meaning 87 and 112/160 acres.
Pueblo - A Spanish grant of less than 1000 acres.
Rancho - A Spanish grant of more than 1000 acres.
Rathbone's Chain - A measuring chain two poles, or 33 feet, in length.
Rod - See pole
Rood - Unit of area usually equal to 1/4 acre.
Vara - Unit of length (the "Spanish yard") used in the U.S. southwest. The vara is used throughout the Spanish speaking world and has values around 33 inches, depending on locale. The legal value in Texas was set to 33 1/3 inches early in the 1900's.
Virgate - An old English unit of area, equal to one quarter of a hide. The amount of land needed to support a person.

Standard Surveying Terms

Aliquot - The description of fractional section ownership used in the U.S. public land states. A parcel is generally identified by its section, township, and range. The aliquot specifies its precise location within the section, for example, the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter.
Azimuth - The number of degrees from north (or other reference direction) that a line runs, measured clockwise.
Benchmark - A survey mark made on a monument having a known location and elevation, serving as a reference point for surveying.
Call - Any feature, landmark, or measurement called out in a survey. For example, "two white oaks next to the creek" is a call.
Chain carrier - An assistant to the surveyor, the chain carriers moved the surveying chain from one location to another under the direction of the surveyor. This was a position of some responsibility, and the chain carriers took an oath as "sworn chain carriers" that they would do their job properly.
Condition - See Conditional line.
Conditional line - An agreed line between neighbors that has not been surveyed, or which has been surveyed but not granted.
Corner - The beginning or end point of any survey line. The term corner does not imply the property was in any way square.
Declination - The difference between magnetic north and geographic (true) north. Surveyors used a compass to determine the direction of survey lines. Compasses point to magnetic north, rather than true north. This declination error is measured in degrees, and can range from a few degrees to ten degrees or more. Surveyors may have been instructed to correct their surveys by a particular declination value. The value of declination at any point on the earth is constantly changing because the location of magnetic north is drifting.
First station - See Point of Beginning
Gore - A thin piece of land, the boundaries of which are defined by surveys of adjacent properties. Loosely, a gap between properties.
Landmark - A survey mark made on a 'permanent' feature of the land such as a tree, pile of stones, etc.
Line Tree - Any tree that is on a property line, specifically one that is also a corner to another property.
Merestone - A stone that marks a boundary. See monument.
Monument - A permanently placed survey marker such as a stone shaft sunk into the ground.
Point of Beginning - The starting point of the survey
Plan - A drawing of a parcel of land.
Range - In the U.S. public land surveying system, a north-south column of townships, identified as being east or west of a reference longitudinal meridian, for example, Range 3 West. See township.
Searles Spiral - A surveying technique used by railroad surveyors in the late 1800s and early 1900s whereby they approximate a spiral by use of multiple curved segments.
Section - In the U.S. public land surveying system, an area one mile square. See aliquot.
Tie line - A survey line that connects a point to other surveyed lines.
Township - In the U.S. public land surveying system, an area six miles square, containing 36 sections. The townships are organized in rows and are identified with respect to a reference latitudinal baseline, for example, Township 13 North. See range.
Traverse - 1) any line surveyed across a parcel, 2) a series of such lines connecting a number of points, often used as a base for triangulation.
Witness Tree - Generally used in the U.S. public land states, this refers to the trees close to a section corner. The surveyor blazed them and noted their position relative to the corner in his notebook. Witness trees are used as evidence for the corner location.

Surveyors' Slang

Surveying, like any profession, has its special terms and slang. Some are just humorous, some help distinguish similar sounds (e.g. eleven and seven), and some are just plain strange!

Balls - Slang for numeric .00, as in 4-balls (4.00)
Beep - Verb. To use a magnetic detector to look for iron pipe, etc.
Burn - See shoot
Burn one - Measure from the one foot mark on the tape rather than from the end of the tape in order to increase the accuracy of the measurement.
Double nickel - Slang for .55, as in 6-double nickel (6.55)
EDM - Electromagnetic Distance Measurement device, the instrument used by modern surveyors that replaces the use of measurement chains. It determines distance by measuring the time it takes for laser light to reflect off a prism on top of a rod at the target location.
Ginney - A wooden dowel 6-9 inches in length with a sharpened end. Set in the ground to mark survey points.
Glass - The EDM prism.
Gun - See EDM
Hours - Degrees
Hub and Tack - A 2" by 2" stake that is set in the ground and that contains a nail ("tack") that precisely marks the point being set.
Legs - Tripod
Pogo - Prism pole
Punk - See railroad.
Railroad - Slang for eleven, as in 42-railroad (42.11)
Rodman - The person holding the rod with the EDM prism. This person is the modern version of a chain carrier or chain man.
Shoot - Measure distance with an EDM
Spike - Usually a 60 penny nail used to mark survey points in hard ground.
Tie - To locate something with the transit or other measuring device.
Top - Slang for eleven. See railroad.
Zero - Zero degrees, minutes, and seconds. A perfect zero.