shaft will reach the bottom of the tunnel when it has been sunk a further eight fathoms.
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A triangle having all its angles acute and its three sides unequal.
This is the method of the surveyor in measuring the mountain, if the principal vein descends inclined into the depths of the earth or the transverse vein is vertical. But if they are both inclined, the surveyor uses the same method, or he measures the slope of the mountain separately from the slope of the shaft. Next, if a transverse vein in which a tunnel is driven does not cut the principal vein in that spot where the shaft is sunk, then it is necessary for the starting point of the survey to be in the other shaft in which the transverse vein cuts the principal vein. But if there be no shaft on that spot where the outcrop of the transverse vein cuts the outcrop of the principal vein, then the surface of the ground which lies between the shafts must be measured, or that between the shaft and the place where the outcrop of the one vein intersects the outcrop of the other.
Some surveyors, although they use three cords, nevertheless ascertain only the length of a tunnel by that method of measuring, and determine the depth of a shaft by another method; that is, by the method by which cords are re-stretched on a level part of the mountain or in a valley, or in flat fields, and are measured again. Some, however, do not employ this method in surveying the depth of a shaft and the length of a tunnel, but use only two cords, a graduated hemicycle[1] and a rod half a fathom long. They suspend in the shaft one cord, fastened from the upper pole and weighted, just as the others do. Fastened to the upper end of this cord, they stretch another right down the slope of the mountain to the bottom of the mouth of the tunnel and fix it to the ground. Then to the upper part of this second cord they apply on its lower side the broad part of a hemicycle. This consists of half a circle, the outer margin of which is covered with wax, and within this are six semi-circular lines. From the
- ↑ The names of the instruments here described in the original text, their German equivalents in the Glossary, and the terms adopted in translation are given below:—
Latin Text. Glossary. Terms Adopted. Funiculus Cord Pertica Stab Rod Hemicyclium Donlege bretlein Hemicycle Tripus Stul Tripod Instrumentum cui index Compass Compass Orbis Scheube Orbis Libra stativa Auffsatz Standing plummet level Libra pensilis Wage Suspended plummet level Instrumentum cui index Alpinum Der schiner compass Swiss compass
