If you're digging several units on a site, it pays to set up a grid,
even a temporary one, for reference, but I have a pocket-size square
for isolated survey units.

Mine is made of the green plastic-coated clothesline wire and
assembled with the cable clamps made of steel u-bolt with two nuts
and a cast base. They are available from very tiny to very large;
mine are quarter-inch.

The square is three feet on a side, with a hypotenuse across between
two opposite corners.  I made it by driving nails in a three-foot
square on a sheet of plywood. Then I looped the cable around each
nail, creating a loop with a clamp on each corner. Now I go in the
field, stick a nail or chaining pin in each end of the hypotenuse,
and stretch out my square. The gadget will fit in the pocket of a
large Carhartt jacket.

Mention of hypotenuse reminds me of a certain shaggy dog story about
an Indian leader who went on safari in Africa. But it's not PC, so I
can't tell it.


--
Ned

*************************

Continued availability of McSorley's Ale and Yuengling's Porter is
comforting reassurance that intelligent life may yet be found on the
same planet that harbors George Bush and John Ashcroft.