SURVEYS AND HISTORY |
| |
| Abstract: | AbstractNot long ago a very energetic and able soldier-surveyor said to me, “Why do people indulge in all this hero worship? Our forerunners in the Survey were not so remarkable”. Perhaps, on the few occasions when any of us do write Survey history, distance and loyalty add enchantment to the memories. But there is little harm in that. Besides some, at least, were great men. It is not perhaps of much value to our present work to read how Captain Drummond invented the limelight, in order to get his connexions across the Irish Sea. It does not help us much, although it is very interesting, to know how the Ordnance Survey stumbled on photozincography just at the same time as an Australian in Sydney. On the other hand it is of great importance to know just what standards Clarke did gather together for his great series of comparisons. It is of importance to know how the need arose for this scale or that, from the town plans to the I/M, for the same needs still exist. It is sadder but even more important to know how, entrusted with a magnificent field of action, the Survey gave up this item or that to the great inconvenience of the public. Survey history gives a yard-stick by which to assess the value, the authenticity and the precision of such measurement or topography as still underlies our work. It encourages us by showing what obstacles lcan be overcome, and it also teaches us to avoid the dangers, delays or mistakes we may, all unwittingly, repeat. The last are many indeed. Ordnance Survey history is full of warnings of that sort, for “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
