legends · 4 min read ·
Distance Between Stones
A land surveyor measures a field that grows by a few metres a week toward his own front door.
**Fairweather & Pike, Land Surveyors — Boundary Survey 26/033**
**Client:** Mrs. J. Kerr, Hollin Farm · **Task:** verify distance between two boundary stones (Stone A at the lane gate; Stone B at the north wall) · **Surveyor:** D. Fairweather
· · ·
**Field measurements, 6 October**
- **Measurement · Method · Result (m)**
- 1 · Steel tape · 412.18
- 2 · Steel tape (repeat) · 412.19
- 3 · EDM total station · 412.17
*Agreement within 0.02 m. The deed states the distance as 412 m, "more or less." Boundary verified.*
· · ·
**Field measurements, 13 October (return visit, post-storm check)**
- **Measurement · Method · Result (m)**
- 1 · Steel tape · 417.62
- 2 · Steel tape (repeat) · 417.63
- 3 · EDM total station · 417.60
*The distance has increased by 5.44 m in a week. Stones A and B have not been moved. I checked the concrete footings. The stones are bedded in clay and have been there since the enclosure act.*
· · ·
**Surveyor's note (D. Fairweather, 13 October)**
Measurements consistent among three independent methods. I conclude the distance is real and the stones have not moved relative to the ground. I conclude, therefore, that the ground between them is longer.
I walked the line with a hundred-metre tape and a ranging pole and checked my own pace. I paced 412 steps from A to B on the sixth. On the thirteenth I paced 417. I did not hurry. The field is flat. There is a hedge to the east, a ditch to the west. Nothing is different. I take longer to cross it.
· · ·
**Field measurements, 20 and 27 October**
- **Date · Distance (m)**
- 20 Oct · 424.01
- 27 Oct · 431.40
*Increase of about 7 m per week. The rate is itself increasing. At this rate the distance between the stones will double in fourteen weeks.*
· · ·
**Client's letter (Mrs. J. Kerr, 28 October)**
*Dear Mr. Fairweather,*
*I'm writing about the distance between the stones. My late husband used to say the field was growing. He measured it every year with a long steel tape from the shed. He kept a book. Every year, 412 metres, and a little more. He said the field was stretching like a held breath.*
*I thought he was joking. Last week I walked the boundary and I counted 431 paces from the lane to the north wall, and I could not see the stone at the end of the field. I could only see the hedge. I was a long way from the house.*
*I have walked the field before. It has always taken four minutes. This took eleven.*
· · ·
**Surveyor's note (D. Fairweather, 29 October)**
I looked at the old man's book. The measurements go back thirty-one years, one a year, in the same hand, and each is a little more than the one before. They fit a smooth curve. The curve is not linear. It is not exponential. It is like the curve of a number approaching a quantity from below, getting closer each year, and I plotted it forward.
The curve tends to a value. The value is the distance from the lane gate to the north wall, as it will be at a point in time some weeks away. That distance is 1,904 metres.
I looked it up on the map. 1,904 metres from the lane gate, on the line A–B, in the direction the field runs, is the front door of my house.
· · ·
**Survey 26/033 — conclusion (D. Fairweather, 1 November)**
The boundary stones at Hollin Farm are in their original position. The distance between them, as measured, is 438.73 m and increasing. I have recommended that Mrs. Kerr not walk the field in poor light.
I have not told her what the curve means. I have drawn up the report, and I have signed it, and I have posted it. I will not post a second copy. I am going to measure the distance from my front door to Stone B again on Friday. I measured it on Monday. On Monday it was 1,901.