Friday, March 06, 2009

Marker piles from between oaks.

On a hill in Harvard, a place I know, I was looking at the piles trying to decide if they were in lines or notand trying to decide if there was one place from which you could see them all.In fact, there was such a spot, where the ridge extended out into the slope and you could see all the piles. I think such a spot is a key element. Here is the the view towards the end of the ridge where I imagine this special spot to be near the cedar tree:There is also a black oak to the left and a white oak to the right. Most of the rock piles were visible downhill from the cedar tree. There were also a few smaller rock piles visible from that same location but uphill, behind the "camera" in the picture. As often at such places, the larger piles are further downhill. What emerges from this is that the lines of rock piles (that I am always looking for) are not in line with this spot on the hill. To the contrary, the piles are visible, separately, from there, and evenly spaced along lines that are perpendicular to the view from the central spot. Hence these piles are tick marks along a ruler rather than enforcers of the straightness of the ruler. And this is consistent with the placement of vertical clean-faced sides of rock piles which also happens at such places (although not here) where such clean-faced sides are in line with a direction perpendicular to the line of piles.

This does open open up the question of why someone would bother putting rock piles in straight lines when they are not to be viewed along that line? What purpose would the line serve? It would be great if it marked something else but perhaps it is aesthetic. Is there another possibility?

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