Posted By Lawrence Paul Lopresti on 1/22/2009 at 3:35 PM
I
am doing some office cleaning an reorganizing. As I was shifing some
surveying texts on the shelves I successively handled the Breed And
Hosmer "Elementary Surveying" text I used in college, Edition 10, 1970.
Next to it I placed Searle's "Field Engineering" Sixteenth Edition,
1911 and "Trautwines Engineers Pocket Book" 1882.
What is
common to all these books is that they are small with flexible binding.
They are intended to be placed in the pocket and carried around all day
in the field. Included are geometric and log tables such that
complicated calculations can be completed in the field, with the tools
of the day, pencil and paper. Pretty much everything that was
neccessary to know is in these texts. If you were in the field and came
across a problem you had never before faced it was possible to sit down
with these texts and learn what to do. Given a rainy day it was
possible to sit down, read and upgrade your skills.
I am not aware that any such texts exist today, but should they?
My
Breed and Hosmer consists of 778 pages. Today one could remove the 100
pages of mathematical tables and replace it with basic GPS principles.
Would todays field crew be inclined to carry such a text ot do they
think they already know everything they need to know?
Paul in PA
Older Surveying Texts?
January 23, 2009
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