Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/72

 the other was roused and set to work, and he went to bed so that all was ready.'

He applied the principle of division of labour to the making of his instruments, 'considering the vastness of his work.' 'One man made measuring chains—a wire-maker; another magnetical needles with their pins, viz. a watch-maker; another turned the boxes out of wood and the heads of the stand on which the instrument plays, viz. a turner; another the stands or legs—a pipe-maker; another all the brass-work, viz. a founder; another workman, of more sensitive head and hand, touched the needles, adjusted the sights and cards, and adapted every piece to each other.' Time-scales, protractors, and compasse-cards were obtained from London, 'whither also was sent for "a magazine of royale paper, mouth glue, colours, pencilles, &c."' A uniform size of field book was determined upon, and, where necessary, the surveyors were furnished with small French tents and portable furniture, as it was to be expected that in the wasted counties they would often find neither house nor harbour. Great trouble was taken to secure the most trustworthy meresmen in each barony, and to organise the department of accounts as perfectly as possible. 'But the principal division of the whole work,' Dr. Petty relates, was 'to make certayne persons such as were able to endure travail, ill lodging and dyett, as alsoe heatts and colds, being men of activity that could leap hedge and ditch, and could alsoe ruffle with the several rude persons in the country; from whom they might so often expect to be crossed and opposed. The which qualifications happened to be found among several of the ordinary soldiers, many of whom having been bred to trade, could read and write sufficiently for the purposes intended. Such therefore, if they were but heedful and steady minded, though not of the nimblest witts, were taught.' The same principle of dividing the labour as much as possible was carried out in the actual work of the survey, one set of men being employed to value the land and to fix what was profitable and what was unprofitable; another to do the actual