Manuel de Topométrie Opérations sur le Terrain et Calculs

Abstract

IN this book Capt. Baillaud sets down his war experience in the preparation of the plans necessary for artillery work, gathered during two years spent as Chef de Brigade Topographique. No claim is made to the production of a complete text-book of surveying; the author's limited experience would preclude that; and, as will be naturally understood, the practised surveyor has little to learn from this volume. The only point where it may possibly be of service in supplementation to more complete treatises is in the discussion given of the problem of resection, particularly of resection from more than three points, a problem somewhat neglected by English writers. A fervent claim is made to the superiority of the centesimal division of the quadrant, which, it is held, offers practical advantages, such that, once used, it is hard to understand how its merits can be doubted; “one returns with difficulty to the sexagesimal division.” However this may be, the subject is now beyond discussion, there not being the remotest chance of the use of the centesimal system spreading outside the pale of the Service géographique de l'Armée. Even admitting that there are some gains in facility of computation, we think these dearly purchased at the cost of this isolation.

Manuel de Topométrie. Opérations sur le Terrain et Calculs.

By Jules Baillaud. Pp. vii + 222. (Paris: H. Dunod, 1920.) 13 francs.