TRAIL OF THEODOLITE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10312, 22 January 1927, Page 10

TRAIL OF THEODOLITE

EXPERIENCES IN FAR NORTH. RE-PRODUCTION OF OLD SURVEYS. (By W. J. Wheeler, of Gisborne.) As in mv Waikato cadetship, so also in North Auckland duty, it soon became evident that my most responsible duty was the accurate reproduction of the old. surveys, the pegs of which were rarely found, but, in the bushes wlvM'e the timbermen had not operated, wo generally found those lines which had been faithfully cut and where trees had been blazed by the original surveyors. What particularly helped us was the fact that most of the old surveyors’ theodolite work was fairly accurate, as well as their ehainages on flats, or fairly accurate, as well as their ehainages on flats or fairly level ground, and also that, though their cross country distances were likely, in steep or precipitous gullies, to be in error, yet they always obeyed their orders to keep their loads as near to the tops of the ridges as possible, so wo knew that, generally speaking, if the chainages from back lino to front of section did land us near the top of the main ridge, the old distances must have licen wrongly measured or computed. For this reason, we rarely attempted to re-define the side lines, until we had succeeded first in finding the frontage and back original survey lines.

HOW THE EARLIEST SURVEYORS WORKED. One of the oldest or earliest surveyors left work very difficult to reproduce as regards distances. It was clone long before the. establishment of trig stations and true hearings, when compass or magnetic meridian only was in use. When questioning the old Natives concerning his operations, they assured me that there were cases in which ho did not chain all his survey lines, but that lie marked a number of trees, making them do for his pegs and angles, and frequently stepping or guessing - their distances and bearing by calling through the bush from one to another, pointing h.is compass or theodolite m the direction from which it seemed to him that the sound proceeded. Fortunately, he noted the tree in most cases on his map, and I have seen several of the stumps of the trees in my attempts to rc-producc his surveys. Iho survey plan of one ol the fiist and oldest townships in the North, showin the original herrings and distances had been lost, and therefore it was only possible to re-produce it by careful calculation and protracting of lines from the existing copies of the distances and lines shown on original plan and on title deeds.

BOATING LESSONS LEARNED. One afternoon, in sailing hack to camp in a very small boat, with one of the Maori men of the party, a fairly big shark came leisurely cruising around us, micl it was a good thing that lie did not upset the dinghy in our helplessness, for we did not have even one bin-hook or axe with us. One thing tauglit us on rivers was the follv of allowing anyone to overload vour boat, and especially m such a case, to let your only bailing vessels be buried under your cargo, thus render.'ng them inaccessible when wanted urgently. We had one such experience, the boat • being loaded within two inches of the gunwale, bailor stowed »«way in an inaccessible place under c„/go. all ol us aboard-, with our belongings, and when a iresli breeze and s-.-a came along we looked like going uown, as the water started spillkv. * !1 both fore and sit. It was one of those times when a man feels line saying Ids prayers, but, knowing oiio ot tho 111 on Uj be* ;i icull\ good Kjui'or, I called him to the tiller and he .dec-red us solely to our destination. This man was one of the best fcWovs who ever worked on mv party, ami remarkably strong. He iiad been a iqhalor and afterwards an axeman, and was a good bushman. He would think nothing of cutting down a three-foot tree, and unless it happened to be a curly or knotted hir.au. pnriri or rata, lie would refer- to it as a cabbage. Somehow, however, he was not a favorite with the other men ami. on one occasion, thinking that perhaps, lie was in the wrong, I asked the other man (who I knew was a fairly good fighter) why he did not settle the argument in the good old English way. He said, ‘‘No, lie is too good for me; I am not good enough for a man who can carry a sack of potatoes in each hand. FILLING THE LARDER.

On occasions in the Ear North we had 'very little meat. but by trolling paoa shell behind oiir boat with our fishing hooks and lines, we caught quite enough kalniwai to make, up for meat while going to our work; though our biggest fish was’a .small sclinapper which my foreman saw in one of the west, coast waves washed ashore, and with Ids bill-book gave it- a knock which stunned it and enabled him to secure it before it could get hack into the sea. "Whilst at- Oruaiti I noticed some of my friends threshing wheat with the old-fashioned hand flails, and seeing here an opportunity oi getting a supply of the home-made or unbolted flour, so highly recommended bv American doctors, 1 got my friends, tvh.cn they ground up the wheat, to let us have a small share for our camp, and this we used on our "Houhoura work, and it Seemed to be more nourishing and more easily digested than the whitened and more refined article in general use. I know we fill enjoyed good health while that flour lasted and that it was also splendid for puddings or pastry. My friends bad been growing and grinding it at Oruaiti for 30 years.