The science of surveying has had many practical applications throughout history. Surveyors map the land, helping to create accurate maps and to identify and establish boundaries. In addition, surveyors also help create navigational maps for both water crafts above and below the water surface. Surveyors also help plan the construction of roads, bridges, buildings and homes. With so many important tasks, it is easy to see why this job is so crucial to many industries. Here are a few notable facts about the history of surveying and a few of the most notable surveyors.
Surveyors use several special tools to help them do their work, and one of the most important tools you might see is a theodolite. This instrument is used to measure angles that are in either the vertical or horizontal plane. The first drawings of theodolites show up as early as the beginning of the 1500s, and English mathematician Leonard Digges developed the first true theodolite sometime before he died in 1559. However, the credit for developing the first modern theodolite with a sighting telescope is given to another Englishman, Jonathon Sisson, who created the predecessor to the modern theodolite in 1720.
Many notable Americans have worked as surveyors including three United States Presidents. While it is fairly common knowledge that George Washington once worked as a surveyor, you might not know that Thomas Jefferson was also a surveyor. Abraham Lincoln also worked in surveying, among his many other jobs.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who are credited with mapping the immense wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase, are two other important Americans who were surveyors. Other important American surveyors included Benjamin Banneker and Andrew Ellicott, who helped survey the land that would become our national capitol. Banneker is an especially impressive figure because not only was he self taught, he was the son of a fugitive slave. In addition to surveying, he was known as an inventor, an astronomer and a mathematician.
Before there was highly accurate surveying equipment, ancient societies still used surveying to help them with various forms of construction. Scientists who have spent years studying the mysteries of Stonehenge, for example, have discovered that the ancient people who built this mysterious monument had to have possessed extraordinarily advanced geometry and surveying skills.
Ancient Romans and Egyptians also used surveyors when they created everything from the Pyramids and the Parthenon to smaller buildings and roads. These surveyors did not have the advantage of theodolites and other helpful equipment and instead had to rely on measuring ropes and basic sighting instruments.
Carey Bourdier loves writing reviews on precision scientific instruments. For more details about surveying instruments such as a compass tripod, or to find other alignment instruments, go to the Warren Knight site today.
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