187281 JG -6 1914 S Q B •F92 6297013 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE following pages were drawn up for the use of the junior officers of the Royal Engineers, and those of the Honourable East India Company's Service, in their course of instruction in Trigonometrical Surveying and Practical Astronomy at this establishment, of which branch of their studies I have for some time had the superintendence. My original intention was to have had them lithographed for distribution among the officers; but I have been since led to the resolution of publishing them in their present form, from their having swelled to a size beyond what I at first contemplated; and also from the total want experienced, during the period occupied in compiling them, of any practical English work on Geodesical Operations, extending beyond the mere elementary steps of Land Surveying. Of this class there are several very useful publications, containing instruction in all the necessary detail, to some of which references are made for information respecting the preliminary knowledge of the construction and use of the instruments most generally employed, as well as to the French authors on Geodesy, whose works I have consulted. |