. The railroad and engineering journal . n the field isoptical delusion. In most situations it is almost impos- Vol. LXI, No. 12.] ENGINEERING JOURNAL. 548 sible to judge, with any degree of exactness, of altitudes,or even whether the ground is inclined up or down hill,by the eye alone. When one looks at a hill or mountain, italways has the appearance of bein^ much steeper than itreally is ; rivers and streams appear to fall much fasterthan they really do. Let the engineer by practice find out what his personalequation is and then regulate his estimates by it. With a good reconnoitering engine
. The railroad and engineering journal . n the field isoptical delusion. In most situations it is almost impos- Vol. LXI, No. 12.] ENGINEERING JOURNAL. 548 sible to judge, with any degree of exactness, of altitudes,or even whether the ground is inclined up or down hill,by the eye alone. When one looks at a hill or mountain, italways has the appearance of bein^ much steeper than itreally is ; rivers and streams appear to fall much fasterthan they really do. Let the engineer by practice find out what his personalequation is and then regulate his estimates by it. With a good reconnoitering engineer, one of the class wespoke of in the beginning, who has natural talent and plentyof who has given him what time he needs onthe reconnoissance. the work of surveying will be verj-much decreased. In most cases it will be necessary to runonly one through line ; of course, many of the details of thisline will have to be run and re-run, but with proper atten-tion to the reconnoissance, the general line and the grades Plate: tv. that can be used can be decided upon, once for all. Ofcourse, it takes a thoroughly competent engineer to do this,and the majority of our engineers put upon location are notcompetent on this point. This is not so much the fault ofthe engineers as it is of the railroad companies. Until with-in the last few years they would not pay properh for alocating engineer, and naturally could not get first-ratemen for third-rate pay. The engineer hurried throughhis work on location as rapidly as possible, and with aslittle work as possible, and jumped at the first chance onconstruction that offered as a situation where he wouldget fair pay for fair work. One great tronble our engineers have is that, as soon asa company has decided to build a railroad, its managersare so anxious to commence the work of actual con-struction that they allow very little time for reconnois-sance, and consequently the work is only half done. The company has to pay for this negle
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectrailroa, bookyear1887
