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Rh of the drift or tunnel the raise should be made, and how many fathoms of vein remain to be broken through in order that the shaft may be connected.

I have described the first reason for surveying; I will now describe another. When one vein comes near another, and their owners are different persons who have late come into possession, whether they drive a tunnel or a drift, or sink a shaft, they may encroach, or seem to encroach, without any lawful right, upon the boundaries of the older owners, for which reason the latter very often seek redress, or take legal proceedings. The surveyor either himself settles the dispute between the owners, or by his art gives evidence to the judges for making their decision, that one shall not encroach on the mine of the other. Thus, first of all he measures the mines of each party with a basket rope and cords of linden bark; and having applied to the cords an orbis or a compass, he notes the directions in which they extend. Then he stretches the cords on the surveyor's field; and starting from that point whose owners are in possession of the old meer toward the other, whether it is in the hanging or footwall of the vein, he stretches a crosscord in a straight line, according to the sixth division of the compass, that is, at a right angle to the vein, for a distance of three and a half fathoms, and assigns to the older owners that which belongs to them. But if both ends of one vein are being dug out in two tunnels, or drifts from opposite directions, the surveyor first of all considers the lower tunnel or drift and afterward the upper one, and judges how much each of them has risen little by little. On each side strong men take in their hands a stretched cord and hold it so that there is no point where it is not strained tight; on each side the surveyor supports the cord with a rod half a fathom long, and stays the rod at the end with a short stick as often as he thinks it necessary. But some fasten cords to the rods to make them steadier. The surveyor attaches a suspended plummet level to the middle of the cord to enable him to calculate more accurately on both sides, and from this he ascertains whether one tunnel has risen more than another, or in like manner one drift more than another. Afterward he measures the incline of the shafts on both sides, so that he can estimate their position on each side. Then he easily sees how many fathoms remain in the space which must be broken through. But the grade of each tunnel, as I said, should rise one fathom in the distance of one hundred fathoms.

The Swiss surveyors, when they wish to measure tunnels driven into the highest mountains, also use a rod half a fathom long, but composed of three parts, which screw together, so that they may be shortened. They use a cord made of linden bark to which are fastened slips of paper showing the number of fathoms. They also employ an instrument peculiar to them, which has a needle; but in place of the waxed circles they carry in their hands a chart on which they inscribe the readings of the instrument. The instrument is placed on the back part of the rod so that the tongue, and the extended cord which runs through the three holes in the tongue, demonstrates the direction, and they note the number of fathoms. The tongue shows whether the cord inclines forward or backward. The tongue does not hang,