Feedback on... SURVEYING
(Page 2 of 4)
November/December 1975
By the Mother Earth News editors
I'll be happy to supply additional information if MOTHER wants it . . . but surveying is one of those skills that's best learned by doing, with someone who knows standing next to you.
RELATED CONTENT
The Editorial Advisory Group is the coolest thing to happen to Mother Earth News since recycled pap...
Ever wanted Mother Earth News to come out more often? Or wanted more articles on your favorite topi...
For less than $10 you can build this sturdy garden hauler....
This sturdy, folding sawbuck will help to make cutting firewood an easier chore....
Find out what MOTHER EARTH NEWS readers have to say about Joel Salatin, Treska Stein, colony collap...
I hope, for my own sake and that of my fellow readers, that other information I absorb from MOTHER isn't as simplistically presented as the instructions in this article.
In closing, I'd like to comment on one technical point. A note with Fig. 10, which shows the process of leveling a foundation, states that the level must be placed far enough away to allow sighting of the tops of the stakes used as markers. This might not be possible (if the house site were on top of a rise, for instance) . . . especially when you consider that the farther the instrument is from the object to be sighted, the greater the error in the results. Aimee solves the problem by suggesting that a target rod be set on the stake. That's fine, but you could easily position the level in the center of the foundation—the best location—and still get readings. It's just a matter of determining the height of the instrument (H.I.) and comparing the heights of the corners by simple subtraction. If you're taking the reading from a stake, sight a mark on its side instead of worrying about the exact elevation of the top.
Well, I could go on, but I won't. Please remember that I have no vested interest in the surveyor's profession . . . I just want to keep people from tackling land measurement with the notion that it': as easy as Aimee's article suggests.
JOHN A. SHUTTLEWORTH:
After 20 years in surveying, I feet qualified to tear a few holes in s in Aimee Gelwick's articles on the subject (MOTHER NOS. 34 and 35). I'll begin with some comments on the measurement of distance.
First of all, you don't need chaining pins for this process . . . they're more bother than they're worth. Any small-headed nail does just as well. Simply clean off a patch of ground where the taped distance falls and stick in the marker at that point.
You do, however, need plumb bobs, one for each chainman. Level chaining is possible only on a flat street, road, or ballpark . . . never in the woods, never even in a pasture.
About the chaining tape: Aimee mentions that the measure's first foot is divided into tenths. On any such equipment I've used, that initial twelve inches has been marked off in hundredths. (Incidentally, I see no reason to tape 56.3 feet in separate units of 50 and 6.3, as the author suggests. Why not just cover the whole distance at once?
