While walking around Old Oaken Bucket Pond in the Greenbush area, we came across this metal disk embedded in the concrete walls of the local herring run. I didn’t have anything other than the vaguest notion of what this thing might be…. and this is why I love doing a daily photo project, because I am learning something new all the time!
Geocaching.com has a great explanation of benchmarks. They describe this little disk as “a point whose position is known to a high degree of accuracy.” As a vertical mark, M42 indicates an established height above sea level.
Not all benchmarks are disks; some are lights at the end of a breakwater, or cupolas on barns, or spires of churches. It does make you wonder how many benchmarks you are passing every single day without knowing they are there.
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