What is the purpose of a witness stake?

• A. To directly locate a point
• B. To call attention to a hub stake but does not locate the point
• C. To mark the end of a line
• D. To identify a boundary line

Answer: (B)

A witness stake serves as a signpost that marks or calls attention to the actual stake (hub) that defines the point, helping someone locate the true point later without the witness itself being the point where measurements stop. It provides a reference so the point can be recovered if the hub stake becomes hard to see or is disturbed, but the precise location comes from the hub stake or the measured coordinates, not from the witness stake itself. It isn’t used to mark the end of a line or to identify a boundary line, which are functions of other types of stakes.