The geography and geology of south-eastern EgyptBall, John
Science
The geography and geology of south-eastern Egypt
Ball, John
Geology -- Egypt; Physical geography -- Egypt
Occasionally, when a high hill-station was employed overlooking a
long wadi, time was saved by reading only two distances, both in the
same wadi, one very near to the station and the other two or three
kilometres away, at the same time observing the depression-angles
to these points. The slope of the wadi being found in this way, the
depression-angles to intermediate points gave the distances of such
points without the necessity of staff reading at the intermediate
points at all. Thus, suppose the near point was close under the
station, with a distance of 500 metres and a depression-angle of 18°,
while the remote point up the wadi had a distance of three kilometres
and a depression-angle of 2° 30′. By means of a slide rule or
three-figure logarithms, the near point was found to be 163 metres
below the station, and the distant one 130 metres. A point in the
wadi estimated roughly as half way between the two would be about 146
metres below the station; so that if the observed depression-angle to
it was, say, 4° 40′, its distance would be 146/(_tan_ 4° 40′),
or 1·8 kilometres. Any possible error of preliminary estimation of
the distance in order to find the level would be without sensible
influence on the resulting true distance.
The process of traversing between stations was seldom resorted to,
as the method of fixing stations by re-section from triangulation
points is much more accurate (the errors not being cumulative)
besides being more rapid. But in certain tortuous cañon-like wadis,
where great and time-consuming climbs would have had to be undertaken
in order to see any triangulation points, the method of traversing
with the tacheometer had to be employed.
Levels along the line of march were measured trigonometrically
whenever possible; the vertical angles to one or more triangulation
points being read with the tacheometer, and the distances scaled off
the map, the differences of height, corrected for refraction, were
found by the slide rule in the same manner as in the triangulation
already described. Heights of passes and camps whence no triangulation
points were visible were determined by barometer-comparisons between
them and points of precisely determined altitude.
Names of places were written down by the guides in Arabic characters
on the spot where they were ascertained, and transliterated on the
Egyptian Government system for insertion in the map. Most of the
place-names were checked by getting the guides to give them from
several different stations.
=Detail Surveying at Occupied Triangulation Stations.=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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