SURVEYING EXTRAORDINARY.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2868, 25 April 1878, Page 3

SURVEYING EXTRAORDINARY.

There is quite a genius in a certain district in Otago, whose latest achievement is thus described in the Tuapeka Times: —" It is deserving of public notice thnt at Boxburgh there resides one oftho.se men who, in a thriving new colony, are to bo found of such great advantage, owing to the ease with which they are able to adapt themselves to the circumstances in which they, for the time, are placed. The gentleman in question, in addition to various other branches of handicraft which he occasionally pursues, has been requested to make a survey of the main road lending through the Municipality, tnd, although not possessing the appliances considered necessary by professional surveyors and engineers, he has undertaken the work, and this week might have been observed taking levels with an instrument of the most ingenious construction (which he calls a kaledoniascope), being three broom-handles secured in the form of a tripod, on, the top of which he hat fixed a piece of wood with a spirit-level inserted in it; and at each end of the wood a piece of tin fastened, with a small single hole in each piece; and in order to take more accurate levels an ordinary opera-glass is ijunetiraes attached to it. The apparatus —lik* all other inventions of any importance—requires time to properly test and perfect it, as one of our local business men observed when taking a look through the holes in the tin; he discovered one to be a quarter of an inch higher than the others, so he,took his penknife and regulated the holes' to the one level. Our amateur surveyor (who boasts <jf ;i ex-,, periencfc elsewhere) was somewhat puzzled to ascertain how a piece of road, about a hundred yardt long, and apparently livel, should—when looked at through his apparatus —be found to be about sjx feet out of level. After going into the most elaborate calculations, and still failing to discover any error, his friend of the penknife pointed out that he had forgotten to allow in his measurements for the height of the broom handles forming the legs of the tripod. This is a truly wonderful world—new discoveries are being made eyery day. Roxburgh may be a soted place before long.