Abstract
A MONGST the many perplexing problems with which geographical surveyors have to deal those which concern the determination of altitude are not the least. For purposes of practical ability, such as the levelling of roads or the laying out of contours and gradients where differential altitude is comparatively small and progressive, existing methods are quite sufficiently scientific and accurate. It is in the determination of the relative altitudes of large geographical features, where angular measurements become necessary, that there arises a series of complications due to variations in the amount and effect of refraction, or in that of the plumb-line deflection, which have been by no means exhaustively investigated, and which introduce errors of an appreciable quantity. These errors are seldom of large practical importance, so that an investigation into their origin and the scientific methods of their dispersion is more or less matter of academic interest to that limited public which concerns itself with mountain altitudes and is generally content to accept the reading of a cheap aneroid as sufficient proof of the correctness of a value determined by triangulation.
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References
âœFormulæ for Atmospheric Refraction and their Application to Terrestrial Refraction and Geodesy.â By J. de Graaff Hunter .
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H., T. Atmospheric Refraction and Geodetic Measurements 1 . Nature 93, 42–43 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093042a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093042a0