Product Details

Through a comprehensive collection of pictures, illustrations and short stories, this book presents a fascinating account of surveyors throughout 300 years of history, including several American presidents and other famous individuals. For the surveying community, the book is a valuable reference on historical measurement techniques. The book details the history of the standards of length, including many different theories on why surveyors in the United States use the U.S. survey foot as their standard. It describes a variety of tools and techniques used to measure land, from normal devices such as the steel tape and survey link chain to more-bizarre methods such as the recording of strokes of boat oars in Florida by the original GLO surveyors. The book also gives the locations and names of most of the land offices throughout the United States that sold land during this period, including their opening and closing dates. The last chapter deals with the accuracy of original survey meridians surveyed with a link chain.

This book is an important and enjoyable reference for any anyone who desires to understand the original survey systems.

December 2009