RECOLLECTIONS OF A SURVEY OFFICER IN INDIA

Abstract

To one brought up in Switzerland the call of mountains had always been irresistible, so in 1908 I counted myself lucky in being posted for my first field season in the Survey of India to the party which was that year to plane-table the Nilgiri Hills of the Madras Presidency. The ultimate goal was the Himalaya, not to be achieved for many years, and I well remember my feelings of acute jealousy when Kenneth Mason succeeded in joining the Kashmir party a year or two later. Still, there were compensations even in South India. The party moved southwards into Travancore the following year, and it fell to my lot to tackle a mysterious blank marked on the quarter-inch “Atlas” sheets of India “High waving mountains covered with impenetrable forests and overrun by wild beasts”. This was the catchment area of the Periyar Dam constructed some seventeen years previously by Col. Pennycuick, R.E. (if I remember rightly), for the purpose of diverting some of the monsoon rainfall of the Western Ghats to the dry Tinnevelly side of the watershed. The dam had formed a narrow many-armed lake running 21 miles into the “waving” mountains and ending at the fringe of the “impenetrable forest”. To that extent the communications problem was solved: by the use of dugouts. These the younger generation of the small jungle tribe living on the lake border had learnt to make and to paddle. I spent two interesting if lonely seasons there, first triangulating alone and then plane-tabling with a “camp” of eight Indian surveyors. The lake area was open country, if you can call 10-foot elephant grass open. Against Forest Department orders I more than once set a match to the grass in the evening and found several square miles clear for work by next morning. This simplified getting about, but the charred grass stalks made one black from head to foot. Apart from my own men I met no one whose language I could speak during those two seasons except some tea-planters from Pirmed on one occasion, my “O.C. Party”, Sackville Hamilton, who came to inspect, and Stoehr of the Sapper batch above me who came to shoot an elephant.     

DEVELOPMENTS OF SURVEY IN JAMAICA

Abstract

The Primary Triangulation did not cover completely the eastern end of the Island and it was required to carry the net out to the coastline in this region. Two additional primary stations have now been selected to admit of this extension. The lines straddle the John Crow mountains, which were one of the great obstacles at this end, and one point is actually on the lighthouse t at the eastern extremity of Jamaica. Since observations are needed from one side only of the lighthouse, we have put a special bracket on the balustrade of the lantern gallery to support the theodolite; the beacon is plumbed upside down below this. I enclose three photographs to illustrate it.     

豫东平原土地利用的遥感调查

本文论述了用近红外彩色成片进行土地利用现状调查的原理和进行土地利用类型判释的方法,并详细介绍了豫东平原土地利用类型的判释特征。在此基础上分析了豫东平原土地利用现状的特点,指出了豫东平原土地利用现状存在的问题,提出了综合开发利用的意见。     

USE OF SURVEY SECTIONS IN OPERATIONS

Abstract

When I took over the command of a West Africa Brigade Group in 1939, I found that one of the units in the brigade was a survey section, and, in the course of training this brigade, I was rather concerned as to how this survey unit would or should be used. It was a small unit consisting of three officers (Europeans) and approximately 50 African other ranks, all belonging to the local Government Survey Department. I knew that it could map any particular piece of country, or could lay outbuilding sites, ranges, etc., but, beyond this, and normal military training, I am afraid that I could think of no other ways of using it. I knew also that, when the brigade was trained, we were to move to another part of Africa and that operations were likely to take place over country which was mostly unmapped. This, then, would be the opportunity for the survey section. At the same time, the size of the country we were likely to operate in was so enormous that my little survey unit would be swamped and quite unable to produce operational maps in time for me to use them. In due course we arrived on the scene of operations. My survey section was taken away from me and merged with other sections in a survey company. This company commenced to map parts of the country in which it was considered likely fighting might take place. This was exactly what I had anticipated, although I still considered that even this bigger unit was much too small for the huge job it had to do.     

卫星遥感土地利用调查精度研究

根据江苏省土地利用卫星遥感调查的实践,对以陆地卫星TM为主要信息源进行土地利用现状和耕地资源调查的定位、定性和定量精度进行分析研究,对应用卫星遥感进行土地利用调查的可靠性、适用范围和提高精度的方法进行了探讨。     

《测量平差》教学中矩阵秩的应用

本文以附限制条件平差为例，讨论了矩阵秩在《测量平差》教学中的应用，实践表明，提出的几个幂等矩阵及恒等式有利于平差学习。     

IMPROVEMENTS IN REPRODUCTION METHODS OF THE ORDNANCE SURVEY

Abstract

The following six notes describe some of the ways in which reproduction methods of the Ordnance Survey have recently been improved. They have been written by different officersof the Ordnance Survey and Ministry of Supply whose initials appear at the end of each note.     

AIR SURVEY COMES OF AGE IN THE ORDNANCE SURVEY OF IRELAND: 1965–1986

Since the mid-1960s, the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, whose headquarters are in Dublin, has undergone great technological change. This paper emphasises the photogrammetric aspects of that change and outlines how a sophisticated range of modern equipment is used in the supply of survey data for the Irish Republic.     

高速公路平面控制测量中的几个问题

本文分析了高速公路平面控制测量中存在的一些问题,提出了解决这些问题的办法,可供生产单位参考。