JOHN LOVE, Philomath, GEODÆSIA: or, the Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land, Made Easie. Shewing by Plain and Practical Rules, How to Survey, Protract, Cast up, Reduce or Divide any Piece of Land whatsoever; with New Tables for the ease of the Surveyor in Reducing the Measures of Land. Moreover, A more Facile and Sure Way of Surveying by the Chain, than has hitherto been Taught. As Also, How to Lay-out New Lands in America, or elsewhere: And how to make a Perfect Map of a River’s Mouth or Harbour; with several other Things never yet Published in our Language. Printed for John Taylor, at the Ship in S. Paul’s Church-Yard, London.

Love’s Geodæsia was the first surveying book used to any extent by American surveyors. A list of it’s users would include George Washington, who was appointed County Surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia in 1748.

Geodæsia was first published in London in 1688. From the very beginning, the work was promoted for use by surveyors in America. Before writing the treatise, Love personally surveyed in Carolina and Jamaica. From those experiences he learned that the existing texts could not be readily understood by the inexperienced surveyor. He found in America, particularly in Carolina, that young men were often at a loss because they lacked the capability to lay out and divide lands. Two examples of their shortcomings illustrate this point. The first was an inability to design a parcel that was five or six times as broad as long and that contained a certain number of acres. The second was their inability to extract the square root of a number. These and other basic mathematical skills are necessary to the practice of land surveying.

The book is divided into 13 chapters that cover mathematics, linear and square measures, instruments, and the practice of surveying. The chapters on surveying teach how to cast up the contents of land; to lay out new lands; also to survey a manor, county or country; and, how to reduce and divide lands. Lastly, there is a section on determining heights and distances by triangulation that includes instruction on how to map a river or harbour. The textual portion of the book is followed by a traverse table to five minutes, and a table of sines and tangents.

The instruments described are the plain table, circumferentor (surveyors’ compass), and Love’s favorite, the semicircle. A brief discussion is included on the use of the water level. The reason for not including telescopic instruments like the spirit level and improved theodolite was that they were not developed until early in the eighteenth century. Before that time angular measure was performed with either the semicircle or with an open-sighted theodolite with a vertical limb. Love does not describe the theodolite, perhaps because he was writing for people who lacked the educational background to handle the more complex instrument. He realized that many of his readers would learn instrument operation without benefit of personal instruction.

Love’s Geodæsia was published for over a century. The first edition appeared in 1688, the thirteenth and last was in 1796. The first eleven editions were published in London, the final two in New York. The various editions were published in 1688, 1715, 1720, 1731, 1744, 1753, 1760, 1768, 1771, 1786, 1792, 1793, and 1796. Modern reprints have been made of both the 1688 (1st) and 1768 (8th) editions.

An 8-page appendix appears in the second and later editions. This provides additional instruction in surveying with the chain only, and includes a table of chords. This table relates angular measure to the length of a chord subtending a radius of 100 Gunter links. Thus laying out angles in the field can be done by using only linear measure.

Samuel Clark in 1768 made what were described as corrections and improvements that appear in the eighth and later editions. Most of Clark’s changes were editing. At one place in the text the spelling of plain table is changed to plane table. Other references to the plain table remained unchanged. That spelling has often varied in texts through the years, and the early confusion is interesting to note.

Publishing the final two editions in America suggests that sales in England were lagging. This was possibly because the book was not being updated to keep pace with advancing English technology. The later editions had some minor revisions, but in general the content remained unchanged throughout its published life. Since about 1720, English instrument-makers have been producing telescopic spirit levels and theodolites. Love’s Geodæsia was first published before that time, and was not revised to include material describing those new instruments. In 18th century America, there was still more reliance on the magnetic compass in land surveying than on the theodolite. This was due in part to the difficulty in measuring angles in the heavily timbered land. By contrast, England had more open land that was suitable to performing angular measurement. As America grew in population and development, both the theodolite and spirit level became important tools for the surveyor. Lacking information on both made the book obsolete by the end of the 18th century.

Love’s Geodæsia is an important part of early American surveying history. It was the first text specifically designed for American surveyors, and treated only those instruments that were then suitable for use in the new land. The text was written so it could be readily understood by persons with little or no mathematical background. It continued in print for over a century before giving way to the advanced works of other authors.

Reprinted from P.O.B., Vol. 21, No. 2, December 1995/January 1996, by permission of Business News Publishing Company, Troy, MI.