Transactions . ; forRamsden died Nov. 5,1800. Mr. Scott refers to no authority;and was he not perhaps thinking of the portable transit indi-cated by Mr. Hoskold, Fig. 80,f as probably the one used inthe surveys of the Box Tunnel, as mentioned by Bourns ? is copied from Simmss figure of an instrument made byTroughton ; and is clearly not properly a surveying instrumentat all, hut merely a portable astronomical instrument, used inthis case extraordinarily for a single sight or two in a tunnelsurvey. It seems clear, indeed, that the transit surveying-in-strument was first invented and used
Transactions . ; forRamsden died Nov. 5,1800. Mr. Scott refers to no authority;and was he not perhaps thinking of the portable transit indi-cated by Mr. Hoskold, Fig. 80,f as probably the one used inthe surveys of the Box Tunnel, as mentioned by Bourns ? is copied from Simmss figure of an instrument made byTroughton ; and is clearly not properly a surveying instrumentat all, hut merely a portable astronomical instrument, used inthis case extraordinarily for a single sight or two in a tunnelsurvey. It seems clear, indeed, that the transit surveying-in-strument was first invented and used in America. But who was really the American inventor of the transit ? * Trans., xxviii., 703. t Trans., xxix., 975. NOTES ON MIMM i:\ lA [NG INSTK1 Ml A I S. -7 M p, Scott gives qo authority for his (statement thai il wbm Youngin L881. Others before Mr. Scott bave made tin- same -twitmint, ami much color baa been given it by Mr. Young?* justlyhigh reputation as an instrument maker; bul did Mi*. Young Fig. Drapers Early Transit. himself ever lav claim to the invention ? There appears to beno evidence whatever that he did so. Fig. 155 shows a transit by Edmund Draper, apparently ofearlier date than 1831, and supposed by its owner, Mr. S. G. KS NOTES ON MINE-SURVEYING [N8TRUMENTS. Frey, of Watsontown, la., to date from 1821. But, as Draperdied Dec 24, 1882, in the 77tb year of his age, according tothe advertisemenl of his death in the usually very accuratePhiladelphia Public Ledger, he would have been only in bis 16th pear in L821, and could hardly have invented and constructeda transit at that early age. Mr. Frey took the instrumentto Mr. Draper in 1874, for repairs ; and says that Mr. Draper,then an old man, after carefully looking it over, said: Yes, Imade that transit many years ago. It was among the first Iput out when I commenced business, and it works as nicelynow as it did when first made. But I cannot remember towhom it was sold, as I have not my old record at hand
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectmineralindustries
