Most images have been provided by Ken Allred, ALS, CLS and Patrick Ringwood, BCLS, CLS

A History of Surveying

Eratosthenes 276 B.C.

From Eratosthenes to GPD

The oldest known topographic map on a

clay tablet of a northern part of Mesopotamia

3800 BC

Cadastral Plan - Mesopatamia - 1700 BC

I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand.

Zechariah 2:1

The Rope Stretchers

• The Pyramids• Pythagoras • Flooding of the Nile• Early cadastral records

to 3400 BC

Early Egyptian Civilization

Ancient Boundary Stone

Compass developed•Chinese invention - south pointing spoon (lodestone)

•Used as a divining tool in the practice of feng shui

•Magnetized needles used as direction pointers in the 8th century AD in China

•Ca. 850 and 1050 common as marine navigational aids

1st Century – 11th Century

Gerard Mercator – c. 1550

Leonard Digges Invented the Theodolite - England

1571

The Sextant - 1730

• Samuel de Champlain

• Peter Fidler

• David Thompson

• Captain James Cook

Early Explorers

Samuel de Champlain

1608

Samuel de Champlain

Philip Turnor & Peter Fidler

Lake Athabasca - 1791

From the book: Canada’s Forgotten Surveyor by Peter Fidler

David Thompson Columbia River 1806

David Thompson

Peter Fidler

Elk Point, AlbertaFrom the ALS News Magazine

Surveyors and Statesmen

Mount Rushmore: Three Surveyors and another guy!

Surveyor1747-1752

George Washington

From an ALSA Brochure

Surveying

• Essential for settlement

• Early land information system

Technological Revolution

• 1950 – Geodimeter – Tellurometer

• 1970 – Desk Top Computer– Total Stations

• 1990 – Geographic Information Systems– Satellite Positioning Systems

• 2000– High Resolution Imagery

Selective availability turned off in 2000

Global Positioning Systems