Captain Cook did a poop under an apple tree, a blade of grass, tickled
his arse and made him do a pee!
That is how schoolboys of my
age irreverently remember the man who claimed New Zealand. He did not discover the country. There may have
been a settled population destroyed by a tsunami much earlier than the Maori
who wiped out the resident Morori and there are theories of visiting Spanish,
Chinese and even Vikings. Not forgetting Abel Tasman.
Capt. James Cook claimed New
Zealand for the British on 8 October 1769 so for simplicity, we were taught
that he ‘discovered’ the place.
During my school days the
truth was not always put succinctly.
Cook came south to survey Venus
as it passed across the sun – as it does on a repeating pattern of 243 years. At
the time the precise establishment of longitude was a conundrum and it was hoped
they would resolve the problem but the Royal Society were none too happy with
his report. However his calculation of the distance between Earth and the Sun
was out by a mere ⅘ of 1%.
He is not well known for that
remarkable feat, but he is well known
for being an expert cartographer.
Using a plane table,
magnifying glass, compass, chronometer, and sextant he circumnavigated New
Zealand collecting data to draw a very accurate map. Cook accomplished the feat
on a ship bobbing upon undulating seas.
A very clever chap was James
Cook!
I was ok at geometry, but at
Ranger School, when they taught us the rudiments of land surveying, I was
pretty much lost and thought surveying was a game for ‘experts’, so I didn’t really apply myself.
Ho! I soon found that on a forest, surveying was
the only way to record areas planted, roads formed and any other work carried
out! I had to get my act together smartly!
There was no theodolite available
for me! My tools were an ex-army prismatic compass, an ex-army abney level and
an ex-army chain (steel tape type) plus of course the old straight-edge
slasher. I had a chainman to do the donkey work and a survey book that begins
from the back where the readings were recorded as well as any significant finds
along the way.
I learned to be accurate simply
because redoing the work is no fun. Starting at a known, accepted point and
closing at the same point was the name of the game. I plotted the readings onto
drafting paper – and that’s when you know if you are accurate or not.
Early surveyors established a
series of trigonometrical (trig) stations throughout New Zealand. These were
exact locations and plotted onto maps - numbered and with the height above sea
level labelled. All important stuff, but for me the bearing between two trigs on
Government Hill was important to establish the correct magnetic variation/declination.
All the work needed to be in relation to true north.
All the trigs were an iron
pipe driven into the ground with its designated letter engraved into it – each
series of letters was within a survey district. Some trigs have no marker while
others have the traditional, pyramid , black and white markers, yet others are rock
cairns.
There are two trigs that I
know well, H and K of the Otepopo Survey District. These were established sometime
in 1860 and the surveyors’ diaries record that the weather was pretty much as
it is today. They were often held up by fog and misty drizzle – obviously to do
their job, they needed good visibility.
The survey party would have
had to carry everything with them, food, shelter, equipment and I know well the
chill and dreariness of those damp and windy days.
This may be why they went to
the trouble of making a raised rock circle of perhaps ten metres diameter and
two metres high. The rocks were not just placed there, but were shaped to fit
to form a huge disc. A member of the team surely had some knowledge of
masonry. But it shows pride in their
work.
The thing about these two
trigs is that few people have, or will ever see them. There is a lot of rock on
those sites and walking is difficult, so even hunters avoid the areas, and it
is within a production forest and so logging will likely to cause significant damage
to them.
Who cares though? Trigs are no
longer as important; there are aerial photos, satellite photos, laser
technology and hand held GPS machines to assist the still used theodolite. In
hours, they do the work it took me days to perform.
None the less I have the
greatest respect for those tough, resourceful, pioneering surveyors. They were
clever buggers.
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