Surveying

373 Pages·1991·12.98 MB·English

ELIAS HICKS, HENRY THOREAU, AND ALEXANDER SELKIRK
1
AS SURVEYORS
And yet — in fact you need only draw a single thread
at any point you choose out of the fabric of life
and the run will make a pathway across the whole,
and down that wider pathway each of the other threads
will become successively visible, one by one.
— Heimito von Doderer, DIE DÂIMONEN
Supposed to be written by the Editor of the ——— Newspaper,
2
during his solitary Abode in ——— Prison.
(COWPER)
I AM tenant of nine feet by four,
My title no lawyer denies,
From the ceiling quite down to the floor
I am lord of the spider and flies.…
On an internet discussion list, a champion of private property
commented about “Thoreau’s famous rejection of private
property,” in the context of his proposition that “secure
ownership of property is an integral part of being free.”
I responded to this by commenting that although I’ve been
studying the complete writings of Thoreau for many years,
I needed to confess that I had no grasp of what this “Thoreau’s
famous rejection of private property” might consist of. So far
as I knew, I wrote in response, the only remarks about the
institution of private property that Henry Thoreau ever made
were quite commonsense remarks with which we could all agree,
such as that property ownership involved obligations as well as
privileges, and that there were aspects of life to which the
concept of ownership simply does not apply.
For instance, I pointed out, theoretically anyone who owns a
1. The redline map outlines of the surveys have been provided by Allan H. Schmidt <http://allanhschmidt.wordpress.com/>, who is
presently considering accepting author and originator responsibility for this file on Thoreau’s surveying activities.
2. By Horace Twiss, “Verses”
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square of land in fee simple owns that land underground all the
way down to a pinpoint on the earth’s core, and owns an expanding
wedge above his or her head all the way out into the starry
universe. That is, theoretically — but we all do understand that
this wedge ownership does not permit one to stand out in one’s
back yard and discharge one’s telescopic .50-caliber sniper
rifle at airplanes overhead, even when one is discharging this
shoulder weapon absolutely straight upward into the air.
Theoretically — but we all do understand that this ownership
does not permit one to install tripwires and explosives in one’s
hedge to blow the feet off hat newsboy who has been taking a
shortcut. Theoretically — but we all do understand that one of
the great privileges of the property owner is being entitled to
make regular property tax payments to his or her municipality.
Etc. Of course, these extreme examples are surrounded by all
sorts of gray areas, such as whether it is permissible or
impermissible, if one owns a stretch of the creek bank behind
one’s house, for someone else to amble alongside that creek.
Presumably, I wrote, Thoreau would have qualified as one of the
sort of people who would be very liberal, in allowing people to
walk along backyard creeks even when this involved their going
across houselots, as long as they, in so doing, carried out their
own litter. I simply do not see such attitudes as constituting
any serious attack, or even any attack at all, upon the
institution of private property. It is simply the exploration
of a gray area of the law in which we are all expected to make
use of 1.) good common sense and 2.) neighborly good
naturedness.
I proceeded to mention that there were attacks upon the freedom
of private property in Thoreau’s day, and Thoreau was one of the
people who were making such attacks. He was an abolitionist,
which is to say, he wanted to utterly abolish and forbid people’s
freedom to have property in other people. By way of radical
contrast, this, this was indeed a serious attack, and was
considered at the time to be a serious attack, upon the
institution of private property. There were people during his
era who were going absolutely apeshit about their absolute
freedom to have property in as many other human beings as they
could afford. Some of these people lived right there in Concord,
Massachusetts. (The apeshit arguments that were in the 19th
Century being deployed by these slaveowning Americans have been
pirated and copied, without the courtesy of attribution, by a
bunch of Americans arguing even today, even in this enlightened
20th Century, such as for one fine example that posse-comitatus
cowboy Clive Bundy who is letting his cattle graze free on the
public land, while he protects himself behind a line of Aryan
Nation goons with telescopic rifles, and while he spouts his
racist claptrap about black Americans being obviously,
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inherently inferior to white Americans.)
On another discussion list, a scholarly moderated one, I
proceeded to mention, there had been a recent discussion of the
uses of the terms “freedom” and “liberty” during the 19th
Century. The question approached has been, were these terms then
being used as synonymous with each other, or not? You may have
seen this discussion even being reported upon in an article in
the New York Times. The general consensus we reached on that
list was that during the 19th Century these words “freedom” and
“liberty” were being used more or less interchangeably, or as
mere synonyms. My suggestion in that discussion had been that
since they were then being used as synonyms, we should now
exercise our creativity, by formulating a new real distinction
between the two terms. My proposal would be that we now should
begin to restrict the term “liberty” to 19th-Century usages such
as the slavemaster Patrick Henry’s famous shout in the Virginia
House of Burgesses, “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” (What
Mr. Henry-The-Freedom-Fighter, Esq. meant was “either I get to
own other human beings, or, I’ll kill any SOB who gets in my
way.”) We should now restrict the term “liberty” to that sort
of usage, and reserve the word “freedom” for a more modern world
in which we all understand that unless and until everyone is
free, no-one is free.
Yes indeed, I wrote, it is correct that “secure ownership of
property is an integral part of being free.” However, I added,
this happens not to be the only integral part of being free.
There are in fact other integral parts of being free, and these
other integral parts of being free are also things which we
cannot and should not do without. Thoreau, I opinioned, was one
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who chose to place his focus upon these other integral parts of
being free. However, placing one’s focus upon these other
integral parts of being free, as he did, suggesting as he did
that perhaps these other integral parts to being free might be
of even greater importance to us than absolutely secure
ownership of any and all property in any and in every way, does
not, repeat, does not in any sense, I emphasized, constitute any
sort of confrontation with the general “duh” proposition that
secure ownership of property is also integral to being free.
“It just doesn’t,” I orated.
To summarize, I pointed out that Robert Frost wrote a poem in
which a dubious claim is made that it is good fences that make
good neighbors. Such a claim could be better supported if it
were a claim that it is good surveying that makes the good fences
that make good neighbors. Thoreau was a surveyor, which is to
say, his Right Livelihood involved the creation of good
neighbors.
“A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the
process of getting his bread” — What kind of work is there that
spares innocence, then? Note that the kind of work that Thoreau
chose, surveying, involves a kind of community peacekeeping
function. Many Quakers of the period, such as Friend Elias Hicks
for one fine example, chose surveying as a trade, and they did
To be a Christian
is to be Christ-
like.
ELIAS HICKS
not make such a choice in a vacuum. It is effectively a form of
mediation. As a point of information, 19th-Century surveying
really was not, from a technical standpoint, all that complex.
Thoreau, for instance, made his own equipment with the exception
of his compass (does anybody know what the poet Emma Lazarus
eventually did with this piece of equipment, where it is now?).
The stock in trade of the 19th-Century surveyor was not
technical expertise but probity. The key thing that one expected
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from the local surveyors was that they not play favorites, not
favor their cronies or their allies — any technical expertise
that a surveyor developed was a plus to the job, but the personal
rep of probity was its basis. Everybody knew what a good job of
surveying was — a good job of surveying was one that kept
neighbors out of each other’s hair. A surveyor was a
peacekeeper. By paying attention to this particular choice that
Thoreau made, we can learn more about what he meant when he
discussed Right Livelihood in the abstract.
Over and above all this, there is the issue of the popular
impression of Thoreau as being someone who led a lackadaisical,
self-absorbed, selfish existence at the expense of others.
“Thoreau fascinates even as he fails. Emerson was close
to the mark in calling him a modern-day Pan: we readily
see Thoreau’s allure, and we may indeed admire him, but
in the end he is not to be trusted. He enraptures by
imploring us to follow our dreams, to proclaim the
primacy of our own interests and pursuits. It’s an
enchanting message. However, his exploits may also be
variously regarded as cavalier or winsome — and
hopelessly selfish. His example is even menacing to
those concerned with building community-based values
and commitments.”
This impression is furthered by an examination of Thoreau’s
survey documents as stored at the Concord Free Public Library.
This preciously small group of documents is everything a
professional surveyor was able to contribute, in a lifetime of
work? Well, no! –The fact of the matter is that this collection
provides only a decidedly partial glimpse at Thoreau’s work
product. In this collection, most of the product of his years
of surveying work has gone virtually unmentioned. Viewers of
these online documents can say to themselves “Well, that’s all
it was?” But no, that’s not all it was. Actually, Thoreau worked
hard for a number of years as a surveyor, both in town and out
of town, earning his dollar here, his dollar there, by the sweat
of his brow.
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION,
THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Surveying
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120 CE
circa 120 CE:In about this year, Hyginus wrote on SURVEYING. “Among those who made use of mathematics in the
work of surveying, Hyginus (circa 120), known as Gromaticus (the surveyor), is one of the most prominent.
The gromatici were those who used the groma (or gruma), an instrument employed in measuring and laying
out the land, and Hyginus was well known as a writer on the subject, although the fragments of his work extant
show no mathematical contributions to the science. There was an earlier Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus, a
friend of Ovid, and therefore living in the 1st Century BCE), who wrote a work of no merit on astronomy, and
who is sometimes confused with his more prominent namesake, the surveyor.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
Surveying “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project
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1620
3
An English mathematician, Edmund Gunter, developed a 66-foot chain made up of 100 links which would
remain the standard surveying instrument until the beginning of the 20th Century, when it would be replaced
by a steel tape. (Even today you will see property descriptions given in these 66-foot units.) Each link was
fashioned of a piece of wire with loops at the ends and was 7.92 inches in length. The chain had brass handles
at the ends. A rod was 25 links, also referred to as a “perch.” A statute mile was 80 of Gunter’s chains; an acre
4
was 10 square chains.
Also in 1620, logarithmic tables were first published which made it possible to use portable instruments called
3. This is the Gunter who invented the sector, and who introduced the terms cosine and cotangent.
4. Something you have to bear in mind about the practice of surveying is that it is not “high-tech,” but is of necessity a “good-
character” occupation. The most desirable trait in a surveyor has always been honesty, and accuracy –although a close second– is
definitely secondary to this indifference to the money outcome of a measurement. The purpose of a survey is not to enable a man
to make use of a fraction of an inch strip of property that truly belongs to him, but to deter neighbors from murdering one another,
and since it is good fences that make good neighbors, for purposes of keeping people away from each other the primary skills the
surveyor must employ are frequently those involved in mediation rather than any mere sharpness of eye or brain. An inaccurate
survey that two parties accept is inherently far superior to an accurate survey that only one party accepts. Thus the most basic
equipment is often quite as good as the most elaborate. In the 19th Century a local surveyor needed a good reputation,
perhaps a plane table for ease in calculation of angles, and a decimal chain. From time to time an instrument known as
a “circumferentor” would also come in handy: such a circumferentor performed the function of a simple theodolite, and consisted
of nothing more than a magnetic compass with arms holding slits for accuracy in sighting along the needle. A surveyor who really
felt the need to be fancy could invest in the most rudimentary of theodolites, in order to posture before his customers peering intently
into the eyepiece and taking mysterious notes.
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theodolites for the accurate measurement of angles (the instruments in use for angle measurement in
astronomy had always been simply too delicate and too cumbersome for use in the field). These topographical
instruments had pivoted arms for sighting and could measure vertical angles as well as horizontal angles.
Some of them would begin to be constructed with built-in magnetic compasses.
Meanwhile, in a news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology:
• William Oughtred, another English mathematician, was developing the 1st slide rule.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Surveying “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project
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1631
Development of the vernier, a surveying instrument permitting the more accurate reading of angles.
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1638
Development of the micrometer microscope, useful in surveying.