The Monument in the Ground

The truth of a boundary was never in the deed — it was in the monument, the physical marker the original survey left in the ground. A deed is a summary; it can be miscopied, and a man’s memory of it is worse. The honest surveyor settles a disputed line by re-walking it to the pin, not by averaging two papers — and he re-checks even a trusted colleague’s word, because confident notes drawn from an old draft walk you off the true line while everyone nods. In the country where software acts on its own, the monument is the bytes: a verdict that recomputes from the source, by a stranger who trusts neither party. Read the monument, not the deed.