TRIALS OF A SURVEYOR-MODERN VERSION

Abstract

Reading the Empire Survey Review of 20 years ago, with the tales of raw jungle and untrodden country, as in Sir Charles Arden-Close's retrospective accounts, I am tempted to give a brief picture of surveying in the Colonies today, away from the beaten track.     

A FIFTY-YEARS RETROSPECT

Abstract

The International Population Union.—In 1927, as President of the Geographical Association, it was my duty to deliver an address to the Association. I chose as my subject “Population and Migration” with special reference to the English-speaking peoples. One result of the publication of this in Geography, the journal of the Association, was that I was invited to attend the World Population Conference, which was held at Geneva in August-September 1927. The Conference was a very interesting affair. It was organized, and largely paid for, by Mrs. Margaret Sanger. About twenty-four countries were represented. The late Sir Bernard Mallet presided, and in one of his speeches, winding up the Conference, he truly said that we might “congratulate ourselves on having shown the world that population questions, which bristle with controversy, political, moral, and religious, can be discussed by sensible people without animosity or unseemly wrangling”.     

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.     

CADASTRAL SURVEY AND LAND RECORDS

Abstract

We regret that, owing to illness and the pressure of other demands on them in the same field, it has been necessary to interrupt the publication of the papers on cadastral subjects which Sir Ernest Dowson and Mr. Sheppard are contributing to the Review. We hope, however, to resume this valuable and interesting series in the January 1947 issue.— ED., E.S.R.     

SOME PROBLEMS OF RESECTION AND COUNTERSECTION-I

Abstract

“A Well-Defined mountain, though miles inland and never visited by the surveyors, will often prove the very keystone of a chart which cannot be regularly and theoretically triangulated” (“Hydrographic Surveying”, by Rear-Adm. Sir Wm J. L. Wharton, K.C.B., and Rear-Adm. Mostyn Field, F.R.S. 3rd Ed. 1909, p. 128). To many the reasons prohibiting the occupation of inland stations may be unknown; it may suffice to state that, in the past, British hydrographers have mapped many coastal waters where penetration of the land was at least inadvisable. Since the charts so made were in general sold to the world, seamen of all nations have benefited from the surveys.     

A FIFTY-YEARS RETROSPECT

Abstract

Early in 1902 I accepted with some misgivings the post of Instructor in Surveying at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, in succession to Major A. C. MacDonnell. I had hardly joined at Chatham when Sir Thomas Holdich offered me the post of second in command of the Chile-Argentina Boundary Commission. However, my new chief, the Commandant, would not let me go, so I settled down to a few years of very pleasant work at Chatham. The first thing to do was to introduce a correct method of computing the geographical coordinates of the trigonometrical stations of a topographical survey, a matter over which my predecessor had suffered a rebuff. Now, however, the War Office personnel had changed; no opposition arose, and the thing was done.     

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).     

THE AFRICAN ARC OF THE 30th MERIDIAN

Abstract

This project, which is now well known to surveyors not only in Africa but all over the world, was first visualised by Sir David Gill, who for many years was H.M. Astronomer at the Cape Observatory. It is fitting to commence by giving in his own words his conception of the work, the part of which from South Africa to the Equator has now been completed. The following extracts are taken from the paper “On the Origin and Progress of Geodetic Survey in South Africa, and of the African Arc of Meridian”, by Sir David Gill,K.C.B., F.R.S.     

LOCAL ATTRACTIONS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE DETERMINATION OF HEIGHTS ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL

Abstract

Preliminary Note.—The substance of this article was written in 1921 at the request of Lieut-Col. Wolff, who was then in charge of the Levelling Division of the Ordnance Survey and with whom the author collaborated in writing “The Second Geodetic Levelling of England and Wales, 1912–21” under the direction of Sir Charles Close. It was not intended for publication and was not again considered until 1928, when a discussion by correspondence was started by the Surveyor-General of Ceylon on the subject of hill circuits in levelling. In this discussion the survey authorities in Great Britain, Canada, India, and South Africa took part, but the main theme was the accumulation of error due to the large number of sightings necessary in hilly country and the question whether a common formula for such country and for flat country was justifiable. In his contribution Dr. van der Sterr made a brief allusion to the subject of the present paper and Dr. de Graaff Hunter went into details. His contribution and the following remarks therefore have some arguments in common.     

THE STATE OF THE SURVEYS OF BRITISH AFRICA IN 1905-06

Abstract

Whilst turning over some old papers the other day I came across a copy of the first Annual Report of the Colonial Survey Committee, and the recent, much regretted death of Sir Herbert Read reminded me of his services in the development of the surveys and explorations of British possessions in Africa, especially his suggestion, which was approved by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, of the formation of the Colonial Survey Committee, an Advisory Committee which was set up in August, 1905. This Committee advised the Secretary of State “in matters affecting the survey and exploration of British Colonies and Protectorates, more especially those in Tropical Africa”.     

INTERPOLATING FROM TRAVERSE TABLES TO SECONDS

Abstract

In the Empire Survey Review, no. 4, 1932, Mr. Clendinning has described a method of interpolating from traverse tables to seconds. Below is another method, due to Prof. Nekrassov, for use with traverse tables published by him. The method is described in The Geodezist, Moscow, 1936, no. I, pp. 47–52.     

THE ORDNANCE SURVEY FOOT/METRE CONVERSION RATIO

Abstract

The Figure of the Earth used by the Ordnance Survey for its work in Great Britain is that given by Sir George Airy in the “Encyclopaedia of Astronomy” in an article on the Figure of the Earth. It is universally known as Airy's Figure.     

FIGURES OF REFERENCE FOR THE EARTH

Abstract

1. The object of this note is to clear up what I believe to be some misconceptions regarding the use of a reference system by a surveyor of the earth's surface. In his article “An Aspect of Attraction”, E.S.R., No. 7, pp. 24–8, Major M. Hotine expressed doubts as to the validity of the process usually followed. I may say at once that I consider these doubts are unfounded.     

FURTHER NOTES ON FIGURES OF REFERENCE

Abstract

Major Hotine (E.S.R., No. II, pp. 264–8) still finds the location of a reference spheroid to offer insuperable difficulties. I confess that my difficulty is to see his! In my previous article (E.S.R., No. 8) at the foot of page 76, I used the word “coincidence” in error for “parallelism”. This harmonizes the article and I am glad that Major Hotine has directed attention to the error.     

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.     

LATERAL DISPLACEMENT OF SIGNALS OBSERVED

Abstract

I notice that in the last two numbers of the Empire Survey Review a lateral displacement is mentioned or implied.     

STONEHENGE AND WOODHENGE

Abstract

Owing to the kindness of the editor, I have recently been able to see the article on Stonehenge and Woodhenge by Captain Learmont, together with the editor's notes in the Empire Survey Review for April 1936. I hope the editor will also allow me space to make a few comments.     

THE COLOURS QUESTION

Abstract

The foundation of my former paper was nothing more substantial than a recollection of reading or hearing long ago that the property of the four colours existed in practice but had never yielded to strict theoretical analysis. I am therefore most grateful to Col. G. S. C. Cooke and Mr. G. W. Ross Jackson for their letters to the Editor (vol. iii, no. 15, pp. 52–5) citing the relative authorities, as they enable me to locate and acknowledge my debt to Mr. W. W. Rouse Ball, whose book was certainly in my hands in the Oxford Union Library some forty years ago. I wish I could remember his demonstration of the problem, but my subconscious faculties seem, from what Col. Cooke says, to have evolved a tolerable imitation of it, and until I have an opportunity of seeing the book again or of consulting any of the other authorities, I shall rest content in the assurance that, wherever my arguments may differ in substance from those of Mr. Rouse Ball, my errors will be so flagrant as to deceive none but myself, though my serenity in this connexion is somewhat shaken by the fate that seems to have attended the first welcome efforts to unmask a few of them.     

COMPUTATION OF DISTANCES OF LONG ARCS FOR RADIO PURPOSES

Abstract

In the E.S.R., No. 59, Vol. VIII, of January, 1946, I gave a formula which I had worked out to give a rapid and easy means of computing the lengths of long arcs, up to 1000 kilometres, between two points whose latitude and longitudes are known on a definite figure of the earth.