My son's friend rescued a surveying textbook from a snow filled dumpster and thought of me. The copyright page is gone. I'm guessing about 1925. But maybe older. Has anyone seen this before??ÿ
There is a detached sketch of compass observations from 1898.?ÿ
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I'd guess before 1900, based on the original date on the preface of 1851, the style of transit, and the handwritten sketch dated 1896.
So far I haven't found the exact book, but here's one from 1898 with similar spine marking also derived from Davies by another editor/author, and its preface is 1883.
https://www.abebooks.com/Davies-SurveyingElements-Surveying-Leveling-Amringe-Howard/10433825480/bd
Here's what Bud Uzes says at a site:
http://www.surveyhistory.org/surveying_books_1800s.htm
Davies, Charles, Elements of Surveying, (New York, 1830), 147 pages of text plus 153 pages of tables and 9 folding plates. This was the first of a series of Davies' books on surveying and was intended for use of the students at West Point. Beginning in 1835 the content was modified for use outside the academy. Later editions had different titles and expanded sections including navigation. Davies Surveying dominated the market during the mid-19th century and was a major contribution to the development of surveying within the United States. Despite being periodically updated it never really kept pace with the advancing technology and doesn't include material on the commonly-used surveyors transit until the 1883 version published by J. Van Amringe. Nonetheless it was very popular and provided guidance for a large number of surveyors during the mid-19th-century. The various titles with the beginning years are: Elements of Surveying (1830), Elements of Surveying and Navigation (1841), Elements of Surveying and Levelling [sic] (1870), and Elements of Surveying and Leveling (1883).
I have two in decent condition in my office library I saved from the landfill years ago.
