re: Explorers of the past were tough SOBs

If you want to read some more about the subject of "tough SOB's" then read about the Original Surveyors that came in and surveyed the newly ceded land from the Native Americans to the federal government and what they went through and how they used crude instruments (such as surveying chains, rods, and compasses) to lay out the public land survey system that we still use to this day.

Land surveying, especially boundary and construction surveying, was and still is one of the toughest, grittiest, physically demanding and, dare I say, alpha male professions there is, but those guys who entered into the American wildernesses and who were charged with surveying it were a cut above the rest, and their responsibilities were pivotal to the development of the country: Their duty was to lay out "what is where," but they were also charged with sending their meticulously taken field notes (their notes also acted as their "diary" of sorts) back to Washington DC so that the government and wealthy land purchasers could know how to price the land and get the best of the best for whatever desired purpose they had for the land (e.g., if you bought 4 townships of land 2000 miles away in Wyoming for the purpose of logging it only to find out it was a barren, upland desert then much time and effort and money would've been wasted).

What's even more cool is that if you know how, somewhere in your courthouse the original field notes and plats (or at least a copy of them) from the original surveyor should still be available. Louisiana may be different since they've a bit different history and legal system, but for the remainder of most of the rest of the country, you can get access to those notes and original plats.

Another neat thing about the original surveyors and their field notes is that botanists, biologists, naturalists, etc. utilize the original field notes: Largely ignored for decades, they realized (seemingly all at once) that if they wanted a first-hand account of what the untouched native flora and fauna used to be like, look like, and consist of, then the notes of the original surveyors were arguably the best, most underrated places to find it. It was the OS's job to report back on those details with words and maps while at fireside after a long day of designating townships & sections from one another in the untouched American wilderness. Then and now, he had to be part mathematician, part biologist, part botanists, part dendrologist, archeologist, and more in order to be competent in his profession, but mainly and mostly he had to be a surveyor of the the American frontier country, and he was nothing if not an explorer with a very important, very specific, very scientific and economic purpose.

It's a neat history lesson of some of the most underrated, toughest SOB's to have ever of lived, and if you're on PLSS land that was laid out after cessation, then chances are one of those tough SOB's came through where you are sitting and reading this, many many moons ago.