Most land surveyors at some point in their career wind up researching historic field notes, land records or plats from some earlier era. Depending on your area of practice, research may include GLO field notes, NGS control surveys, Native American tribal lands, Spanish or Mexican land grants, metes and bounds in the Colonial states, grant deeds, etc. Researching GLO field notes in my area of California’s Central Coast, I was always drawn to the first couple of pages with the names of long-gone surveyors and their crew assignments, i.e. party chief, instrument, compass or chain men, possibly a few axe men, maybe even a hunter and/or a camp keeper (cook). And before you or any former clients read this, no billable time was consumed developing the following story.

My curiosity piqued about surveying under those conditions, when an internet search for more historical information happened to turn up a July 1992 article about Sir George Everest and the survey of India by Mary M. Root. Reading the article about the world’s greatest triangulation survey of that era, and Sir George’s relentless pursuit of accuracy, I went looking for more information.