Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ...possible accuracy requisite, this method loses its superiority. But for larger surveys, its advantages are unquestionable, and in all cases may be made a valuable source of contribution to those details which would otherwise demand a long and tedious direct observation, and the photographs constitute a series of notes good for all future reference. As briefly exposed in this paper, it is regarded as the last used on this subject by French engineers, and in view of the probable increase in topographical surveying in this country deserves the attention of our own. THE "GEOMETRY OF POSITION" APPLIED TO SURVEYING. JOHN B. McMASTER, C. E. THE Geometry of Position Applied to Suryeying. INTRODUCTORY. I. I PURPOSE to set forth, as briefly as possible, a few results obtained from the application of the "Geometry of Position" to the solution of such problems in surveying as are of every-day occurrence, behoving that the results thus obtained will not prove altogether uninteresting or unprofitable. As the Geometry of Position, however, is a branch of mathematics, scarcely known even by name in this country, some statement of its peculiar character and chief merit seems quite in place by way of preface. That such a statement can be justified on such grounds, is, to say the least, a matter both of regret and surprise. Of regret, that so simple, so beautiful, so eminently useful a branch of mathematics has been suffered to remain so long unheeded. Of surprise, that in spite of the relation in which Geometry stands to all other branches of mathematics, a most important advance in Geometry is quite unknown; that in spite of the efforts so persistently made to simplify and reduce all mathematical processes, a most effective agent for...