What Idaho_ Shooter said--- The first glance at the photo of the box reminded me of the old wooded boxes surveyors instruments were stored in. There is a special way one hand throws ( rolls up a steel tape ) by hand in a figure 8 shape then snaps it into a circular shape. This would just roll the tape up. The eye in the drum looks like it was made to accept the leather thong at the end of the tape.
Yep, that's what is called "throwing a chain". The steel tape was 66 feet in length, one chain. Ten square chains = one acre. A more modern surveyor might have used a hundred-footer.
Now I think they all use lasers. Throwing a chain took a little practice, but once you got the hang of it it was easy. Key is to take up the chain in equal lengths before trying to throw it. No surveyor would have wanted or needed anything as convoluted as the OP's item in order to store a chain. A simple reel or throwing it would suffice.
Now they all use GPS.
That's probably right. Another way for them to get away with not marking the lines. Take the easiest roundabout route to set or locate the corners, then the person needing to know where the line runs has to hire another surveyor or run it himself using good ol' bearings and distances.
"Get away with"?
I see there's some confusion on what a survey is, and what a surveyor does.
A survey is a reflection of legal markers on the ground to mark said property, along with supporting documents, legal description, and accompanying signed and sealed plat.
Of course I would have my crews cut down brush along property lines, and even set points online so that land owners who can't read survey maps can find their way to the back corners...
.....for a price.
Had one guy call up and complain that he couldn't "find the string".
Ummm... What string, Sir?
"You know, the survey string between the points on the front to the back. That's what a survey is."
Ummm... No. That's not what a survey is, but I can send my crew back out there to run some string for about $800 more. He didn't want string that badly.
