A

TREATISE

ON

PRACTICAL

MENSURATION,

IN

Eight Parts;

CONTAINING
The most approved Methods (the Dimensions and Contents of
of drawing Geometrical Figures; a House; Mensuration of Hay.
Mensuration of Superficies; Land stacks, Drains, Canals, Marl.
Surveying; Mensuration of Solids; pits, Ponds, Mill-dams, Embank:
the Use of the Carpenter's Rule; ments, Quarries, and Coal-heaps;
Timber Measure, in which is Conic Sections and their Solids ;
shewn the Method of measuring the most useful Problems in
and valuing standing Timber; Gauging; and a Dictionary of
Artificers' Works,illustrated by the Terms used in Architecture.

BY A. NESBIT,
Master of the Classical, Commercial, and Mathematical Academy,

OXFORD-STREET, MANCHESTER ;
And Author of "A Complete Treatise on Practical Land Surveying;"! "A
Treatise on Practical Gauging," "Keys to the Mensuration and Gauging;
"An Introduction to Parsing, adapted to Murray's Grammar;" &c. &c.

THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED AND IMPROVED.
The whole illustrated by five hundred and eighty Practical Examples, two hundred

Wood Cuts, three Copperplates, and an Engraven Field-Book.

York:
Printed by and for Thomas Wilson and Sons, High-Ousegate;
AND SOLD BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND

GREEN, LONDON ; AND BY WILSON AND SONS, YORK,

1824.
Price Sir Shillings, bound.

TO

ELLIS CUNLIFFE LISTER, ESQUIRE,

OF

Manningham. House,

NEAR BRADFORD,

AS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF 'GRATITUDE FOR NUMER

OUS FAVOURS RECEIVED,

AND AS

A Token of Esteem for His general Knowledge of

Scientific Subjects,

THIS TREATISE,

ON

Practical Mensuration,

In all its Departments,

IS

MOST HUMBLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

BY HIS MUCH OBLIGED,

AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,

A. NESBIT.

VNW

Entered at Stationers' Hall.

Peup And marley
3.42

VaRIous have been the conjectures concerning the origin of Geometry or Mensuration ; but as it is a Science of general utility, there can, I think, be little doubt that its existence is nearly coeval with the creation of Man. Indeed I can see no reasonable objection why we may not attribute its invention to our first parent Adam ; especially as we are informed in Holy Writ, that his son Cain built a city ; to do which, it is evident, would require some knowledge of a meam suring unit, which is the first principle of Mensuration. By the same infallible testimony, we find that the Arts and Sciences were cultivated to a considerable extent long before the Flood. Jubal was the father of all such as handled the harp and organ; and Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. It is also more than probable that Noah was well acquainteri with the Art of Mensuration, as practised in his day ; for it does not appear that he found any difficulty in building the Ark, which consisted of three stories, ace cording to certain dimensions given him by the Lord of the Universe.

Diodorus, Herodotus, and Strabo, are of' opinion that the Science of Mensuration had its rise among the Egyptians; whom they represent as constrained, on account of the removal or defacing of the land-marks by the annual inundation of the Nile, to devise some method of ascertaining the ancient boundaries, after the waters had retired. By Josephus, however, the invention is ascribed to the Hebrews. This writer