This history of surveying presents the development of land measuring in England from its origin in pre-Roman times to 1800/ Although the emphasis is upon the development of the science of surveying and the construction of the necessary instruments for its conduct, human activities closely related to surveying are also discussed. A study is made of the slow changes in the methods of surveying, influenced in part by a changing condition in land ownership and tenure, and the gradual improvement in instrument construction from Humphrey Cole, in the sixteenth century, to Jesse Ramsden and others, by the close of the eighteenth century.
The discussion follows a chronological sequence, treating the development of surveying methods, land tenure, the construction of surveying methods, instruments, and their uses. This book deals primarily with instrument development of many countries through the Renaissance.
As the only work available on the development of English surveying, this work should be of interest to surveyors, engineers, historians of science, historians of agriculture, geographers, and the general historian.
