THE MILITARY SURVEY SERVICE AND THE CIVILIAN SURVEYOR

Abstract

When Colonel Lambton of Indian fame wanted funds for his Survey a leading melnber of the Finance Committee of Madras observed that “if any traveller wished to proceed to Seringapatam he need only say so to his palankeen bearer and he vouched he would find his way to that place without having recourse to Colonel Lambton's map”. Those who have had the privilege of dealing with finance branches will recognise in this quotation a powerful tradition and it is a measure both of the great march of events since Lambton's time and of the deterlnination of military surveyors not to lag behind them, in spite of finance committees, that good military maps are nowadays taken for granted and that the large survey organisations, required to produce them are accepted as a necessity. The struggle to maintain this position however goes on.     

SIR DAVID GILL AND THE GEODETIC SURVEY OF SOUTH AFRICA AND THE ARC OF THE 30TH MERIDIAN

Abstract

In the memoir of the late Capt. G. T. McCaw which appeared in the January number of this Review (vii, 47,2), reference was made to the part which the late Sir David Gill played in the origin of the work on the survey of the Arc of the 30th Meridian in Africa. This year is the centenary of Gill's birth, as he was born in June 1843, and it is therefore timely to give some account of his work during his long term of office as Her Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape which resulted inthe inception and completion of the Geodetic Survey of South Africa and the survey of the Arc to the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika. He died on 24th January 1914.     

A TEST OF AUTO-COLLIMATION

Abstract

In the July 1940 issue of the Empire Survey Review Mr A. V. Lawes contributes a valuable article, “The Application of the Gauss Method of Collimation to the Adjustment of Survey Instruments”. One section of the article describes four methods of adjusting collimators at solar focus, in other words of assuring that the emitted rays are parallel or that the target appears at an infinite distance. Mr Lawes rightly claims that auto-collimation is the most accurate of the four methods, and he warns readers that “the reflector used in this method must be as perfect optically as the objective”. However, he fails to give any method of testing the result obtained by following his directions, and experience suggests that auto-collimation may give a result considerably in error even though the reflector may with some justification be presumed to be good.     

THE MODIFIED MERIDIAN DISTANCE IN THE CONICAL ORTHOMORPHIC PROJECTION

Abstract

Recently the writer of this article became interested in the conical orthomorphic projection and wanted to see a simple proof of the formula for the modified meridian distance for the projection on the sphere. Owing to the exigencies of the war, however, he has been separated from the bulk of his books, and, consequently, has had to evolve a proof for himself. Later, this proof was shown to a friend who told him that he had some memory of a mistake in the sign of the spheroidal term in m⁴given in “Survey Computations”, perhaps the first edition. Curiosity therefore suggested an attempt to verify this sign, which meant extending his work to the spheroid. This has now been done, with the result that the formula given in “Survey Computations”, up to the terms of the fourth order at any rate, is found correct after all.     

A FIFTY-YEARS RETROSPECT

Abstract

About this time an excellent Instructor in Surveying was appointed to the School of Military Engineering in the person of Major A. C. MacDonnell. He had served in India,—though not on the Survey of India,—and, being well acquainted with the excellent Indian frontier survey methods, resolved to introduce them into the course at Chatham. So he started using the system of computing latitudes and longitudes from trigonometrical data by Puissant's formulæ, in the form used by the Survey of India. But he had reckoned without his host, the higher authorities. His dreadful deed became known, and the matter was referred to three eminent officers for their opinion. The three officers were Sir Charles Wilson, Director of Military Education, Sir John Ardagh, Director of Military Intelligence, and Sir John Farquharson, Director-General of the Ordnance Survey; none of the three had had any personal acquaintance with the method in question, although two of them had directed the Ordnance Survey, and Sir Charles Wilson in the sixties had carried out some very interesting surveys in Palestine and Sinai. Well, these three distinguished officers solemnly condemned the Indian method as being unsuitable for use at Chatham, and MacDonnell had to revert to more primitive ways, which later on would have made impossible the conduct of a properly managed boundary commission or such surveys as that of the Orange Free State, Uganda, or Northern Sinai, or much of the technical work on the Western Front during the War. And that was that.     

THE TRAINING OF AFRICANS FOR SURVEY IN NORTHERN RHODESIA

Abstract

Prior to the year 1931 there was no systematic training of Africans for land survey work in Northern Rhodesia, and those natives then in the employ of the Survey Department as assistants to the European surveyors in the field were no more than “capitaos”. Asurveyor, after his arrival in the colony, usually had to find his own native assistant, or chainman, and any native who appeared to have a commanding manner with his fellows, and who was clean and respectful, was eligible for the position. Preference in some cases was usually given to natives who had completed service in the native regiment or police, for their early training had taught them to obey orders, to conduct themselves well, and to control other natives.     

THE TRAINING OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANTS IN MALAYA

Abstract

The subject of the training of European surveyors has received a great deal of attention in the course of the last two Empire Conferences, but little or no mention has been made of the native surveyor, his education, work, and prospects. The subject is very important, however, and the account of the training of Africans for the N. Rhodesia Survey, which appeared in vol. iii, no. 21 of the Empire Survey Review, was read with considerable interest. It may not be out of place, therefore, to introduce this paper on the means adopted in Malaya to recruit and train an efficient staff of subordinates or “Technical Assistants” as they are termed locally.     

AN OLD FILE AND A NEW ARC

Abstract

In his article “Standards of Length in Question” published in the last number of this Review (Vol. i, pp. 277–-84) Captain G. T. McCawgave us most interesting and valuable history concerning the questionable past of the international metre. He has, it may be assumed, exhausted published evidence; but he states that he can find no reference to invitations from this country to France and Holland to send their fundamental standards for comparison with others at the Ordnance Survey in the eighteen sixties.     

CURVATURE AND REFRACTION TABLES FOR TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS

Abstract

In a series of articles published at different times in the Empire Survey, Review, the writer has stressed the utility of the slide rule in topographical work for both mapping and engineering purposes. It is his opinion that every topographical surveyor should be thoroughly conversant with the slide rule, and that there is no difficulty in teaching anyone, even with limited educational qualifications, all that is necessary about if. One advantage of its use is that the plotting-scale divisions need not represent any simple multiple or fraction of the normal units of length, but can be chosen so that the subdivisions cause no undue eye strain. This plotting scale can then be used for work on any scale, all necessary tables being calculated and constants adopted for use with it, without any extra work being required. A scale of I/250 (I foot divided into 25 main and 250 minor divisions) was found to meet the case.     

RECOLLECTIONS OF A SURVEY OFFICER IN INDIA

Abstract

Crabs! Thousands of bright red crabs on a white foreshore; clinging black mud in tidal creeks with an overhanging tangle of tropical forest. These dominate one's memories of the Irrawaddy Delta in 1924. The Forest Department of Burma is the custodian of some 1,000 square miles of valuable forest reserves in the delta of this great river. The survey and production of “Forest” maps of this area was long overdue, postponed by reason of the immense expense and difficulty of a ground survey. Air survey, developed during the First World War, was ideally suited to this type of country but was still in its infancy, so that prolonged negotiations were necessary to persuade the Government of Burma to risk £25,000 on what appeared to them a doubtful proposition, as this was one of the first of the peace-time air surveys to be undertaken. Eventually, in July 1923 the contract was signed. Ronald Kemp, the first Chief Inspector of Civil Aircraft in India, gave up that post and formed an air survey company to carry out the photography as the first of his many survey contracts in India and Burma; I was in charge of the ground work and subsequent mapping.     

RADAR CONTROLLED AIR SURVEY PHOTOGRAPHIC OPERATIONS IN AFRICA 1946–1952

Abstract

In 1943, the Colonial Research Committee accepted a proposal submitted by the Colonial Survey and Geophysical Committee to the effect that a Central Colonial Survey Organization should be established to undertake geodetic surveys and topographical mapping, publish the work completed, hold the required equipment and maintain the necessary records. In order that such an organization, if approved, could commence to operate as soon as possible after the end of war, a detailed scheme for same was called for by the Colonial Research Committee.     

THE COMPUTER—A COG IN THE SURVEY MACHINE

Abstract

1. Lest any reader should be put off by assuming from the title of this article that it would contain a mass of technical matter, it may be stated at the outset that no computations whatever are involved. In fact it is a collection of very ordinary observations pertaining to the efficient functioning of the computing section of a Survey Department. In the opinion of the writer nothing clarifies one's ideas more than sitting down at a table and putting them actually on paper. Things that might otherwise have been overlooked or forgotten are brought to light, and can then be given their proper place in the whole mosaic. There is probably nothing original in this article, yet it is hoped that a comprehensive survey may be of assistance to other computers, as the making of it certainly has been to the writer. It has been written from the point of vievvof a computing section, rather than that of an individual computer. Each individual computer is a cog in the computing machine, whose duties are more those of routine calculation by methods approved by his superior.     

John Wood 2: Planning and Paying for His Town Plans

Abstract

John Wood, the 19th-century urban cartographer, surveyed almost 150 towns spread widely across Great Britain. His detailed large-scale plans are an astounding achievement. In light of this, two questions are posed: did he have a strategy that guided the places which he surveyed; and how did he pay for his work, given that so few copies of his plans appear to have been produced for sale – or at least to have survived.     

SURVEYS AND HISTORY

Abstract

Not long ago a very energetic and able soldier-surveyor said to me, “Why do people indulge in all this hero worship? Our forerunners in the Survey were not so remarkable”. Perhaps, on the few occasions when any of us do write Survey history, distance and loyalty add enchantment to the memories. But there is little harm in that. Besides some, at least, were great men. It is not perhaps of much value to our present work to read how Captain Drummond invented the limelight, in order to get his connexions across the Irish Sea. It does not help us much, although it is very interesting, to know how the Ordnance Survey stumbled on photozincography just at the same time as an Australian in Sydney. On the other hand it is of great importance to know just what standards Clarke did gather together for his great series of comparisons. It is of importance to know how the need arose for this scale or that, from the town plans to the I/M, for the same needs still exist. It is sadder but even more important to know how, entrusted with a magnificent field of action, the Survey gave up this item or that to the great inconvenience of the public. Survey history gives a yard-stick by which to assess the value, the authenticity and the precision of such measurement or topography as still underlies our work. It encourages us by showing what obstacles lcan be overcome, and it also teaches us to avoid the dangers, delays or mistakes we may, all unwittingly, repeat. The last are many indeed. Ordnance Survey history is full of warnings of that sort, for “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”.     

PERSONALIA

Abstract

The death occurred suddenly on 2nd February, 1935, of Mr. WILLIAM ERNEST BARRON,of Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia. Mr. Barron, who was 55 years of age, held the Certificate of Land and Mine Surveyor of the School of Mines, University of Otago, New Zealand, and the Mine Surveyor's certificate of competency, Transvaal, and in 1913 was licensed as a surveyor in Northern Nigeria. In 1921 he was licensed as a surveyor for private practice in Northern Rhodesia. He was for over four years Chief Surveyor to the Van Ryn Gold Mines Estate, Ltd., and for two years to the Bantjes Consolidated Mines, Ltd., and for some time to Modderfontein East, Ltd. He was first employed in Northern Rhodesia as Mine Captain in charge of survey work at Broken Hill Mine, and from 1923 to 1928 was engaged by the Rhodesia Broken Hill Development Co., Ltd., in the survey and setting out of all work in connexion with that Company's Hydro-Electric Power Scheme at Mulungushi. Upon the completion of this work, in which Mr. Barron showed the greatest skill and accuracy under difficult conditions, he was engaged by the North Charterland Exploration Company as surveyor, and at the time of his death he was carrying out the survey of that Company's Land Concession, an area of 10,000 square miles on the south-eastern border of Northern Rhodesia. By his death the survey profession has lost an able and keen personality, and he will be greatly missed by the many friends he made in this country. He leaves a widow and son to mourn his loss.     

THE UGANDA MAlLO SYSTEM

Abstract

The survey of “mailos” or native estates in the Kingdom of Buganda has taken a prominent place in the annual programme of the Survey Department of Uganda for over 30 years past. The survey, which has covered some 17,000 square miles and is now practically complete, has some unusual features, and although it has no claims to refinement or to great precision, a short account of its history and workings may be of general interest. The system of land settlement introduced by Sir Harry Johnston has already been described in the Empire Survey Review (“The Surveyor and the Politician”, by H. B. Thomas, vol. ii, p. 28).     

CADASTRAL AIR SURVEY

Abstract

I Hope Dr Wolff's interesting article will stimulate to action some of those who have not given sufficient attention to air survey as a method of mapping or planning those areas which lend themselves to that method. At the same time, whether so many of us are as conservative as the author appears to think is a matter for doubt, and moreover we do not all look upon air survey as an “innovation”. As Dr Wolff writes from Palestine he might be interested to know that as the second British Officer to take up field survey work in the War in 1915—Major (now Brigadier) Winterbotham being the first—I was one of the earliest in my profession to study, and to assist in the development of, air survey. In 1915 our unit in the 3rd Army was the first to make use of air photographs for the production of a regular series of trench maps. There are consequently few surveyors more interested in the method. I have watched the progress of the science and the work of the Air Survey Committee with continued interest and have used air methods whenever these have been possible or suitable. On my last visit to Paris I tried my hand at plotting with a new instrument at the Service Géographique and was much impressed by the work that was being done.     

SURVEYING INSTRUCTION AT THE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Education at the university should in essence be concerned more with theory than technique, with principles rather than practice. Should a university lose sight of this aim it will of a certainty become a university only in name. The attention to be given to vocational training will necessarily vary from faculty to faculty—that some vocational training is deemed desirable is shown by the very presence of an engineering department in nearly all our universities, a department in which practical training is necessarily mingled with theory. It is possible to say with truth about a certain type of engineering student that he will make a good engineer if only he can get through his examinations; to make the comparable statement about, say, a mathematics student is clearly ridiculous. In other words, the engineering profession, and in particular the civil engineering profession, has room for a good practical man to whom theory does not come easily; and yet in many of our university engineering departments no allowance is made for a man's chosen career save that after his first year of general engineering work he may elect to be a civil mechanical, electrical or aeronautical engineer. Often he has no choice of subjects for study; sometimes he is given a choice of four out of five subjects, as with the external civil engineering degree of London University where his freedom of action resolves itself into a decision between Hydraulics and Mathematics. In this examination, and many others, all candidates are required to sit the same papers in a subject, irrespective of whether they are potential first-class honours men or may expect to obtain a pass degree.     

A knowledge based system for cartographic symbol design

Abstract

The work of the Ordnance Survey in Scotland has been rarely considered at a local level. Several bodies in Glasgow contributed to an extensive correspondence regarding the plan of the city and the appropriate scales of survey. This paper discusses the representation as an insight onto a wider perspective of the development of Ordnance Survey policy in the mid-Victorian era.