Development of the Survey Undertakings during the Republic of China

（Chongqing Vocational Institute of Engineering, Chongqing 400037 China）

Abstract: In this article, the author makes an introduction to the situations of the geodesic survey, the aerial survey, the topographic survey, the railway and road survey, the sea-way survey and the instrument manufacturing during the period of the republic of China.

Key words: the Republic of China, Survey, Undertakings

1 Introduction

Within the thirty years since the early Republic of China (1911), the survey undertakings of the old China attained a considerable development for the purpose of meeting the needs on both military and politics. In this process, the achievements which were valuable to go down in history were achieved at the same time.

2 Geodesic Surveys

During the period of the Republic of China, the geodesic surveys include the main triangulation, the astronomical positioning survey, the triangle survey calculation, and the leveling survey, map projection, as well as the gravity survey.

2.1 Main Triangulation

In the nineteenth year of the Republic of China, the ground survey bureau of Zhejiang province held the first order triangulation at first, and established the Hang-Yong-Tai locking phase, the Hang-Jin-Qu locking phase, the Jin-Tai locking phase and the Wen-Tai locking phase.

Since the twentieth year of the Republic of China, this ground survey bureau began to hold a first order triangulation all over the country. And this survey was very large in scale and well-improved in the equipments. Before the period of the Republic of China from the nineteenth year to the twentieth year, the Jing-Xu, Jing-Wan, Jing-Hang, Wan-E, and Nan-Xun locking phases were completed in total. As for the second order triangulation, the Jing-Hu, Wan-Gan, Shang-Zheng locking phases were completed. After the war of resistance against aggression, this ground survey bureau was moved to Changsha, Guiyang, and other cities. In the mean time, the first order triangulation was stopped with a gradual step.

However, the Rong-Yu and Long-Qu second order triangulation locking phases were established in Sichuan province, Chongqing and Yunnan province.

2.2 Triangle Survey Calculation

Triangle measuring calculation is carried out by referring to the ellipsoid. During the Republic of China, the referential ellipsoids which were used by the departments at all levels were not consistent.

In the very early time, the ground force survey bureaus at all provinces used the Bessel ellipsoid, while all water conservancy departments applied the Clarke ellipsoid.

After the general ground survey bureaus was established, the International reference ellipsoid Hayford, which was agreed by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) at Spain Madrid meeting in 1924, was in the application.

2.3 Leveling Survey

During the Republic of China, not only the general ground survey bureaus carried out the leveling survey and also all kinds of the water conservancy departments as well as the railway and roadway departments implemented the leveling survey.

The leveling starting points which were adopted during the Republic of China included the mean sea levels of Dagu, Qingdao, and Wusongkou, and Kanmen town. North China water resources commission and the Ping-Sui railway of Beibing had Dagu null point; Jiao-Ji railway and Jin-Pu railway used Qingdao null point; Yangzi River water conservancy commission as well as Jing-Hu railway and Hu-Hang railway used Wusongkou null point; the general ground survey bureau established a tidal observation station in Kaimen town of Zhejiang province, for the purpose of calculating the mean sea level; the inland railways and roads departments set the elevations by assuming their starting points respectively.

2.4 Gravity Survey

From the 22th year to the 26th year of the Republic of China, Xujiahui astronomical observatory master R. P. Pierre Lejay, who was from French, used to apply the elastic inverted pendulum that was invented by him to implement the gravity surveys at more than one hundred sites in the country. These gravity survey sites were distributed in the coastal provinces such as Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hebei and Shandong, as well as the inland provinces such as Anhui and Jiangxi and railways.

After the end of the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, the state-maintained Beiping research institute and the Institute of Physics made cooperation with R. P. Pierre Lejay and implemented the gravity survey at more than one hundred place of Guizhou province and Yunnan province. This inverted pendulum was quite simpler than other pendulums and was easy to carry in general, and also the observation method could make the matters simplified, but its precision was not high.

3 Aerial Survey

The aerial survey of China was started from the eighteenth year of the Republic of China. During the very early period, the task of the aerial survey was majored at the completion of 1: 10000 and 1: 25000 maps of all strongholds of the coastal areas of China. Along with the quick mapping speed, economized expense and high-quality precision, this aerial survey was quickly used in land survey, railway survey, hydraulic engineering survey and others for a trial, and received a very obvious effect in general.

In the twentieth year of the Republic of China, Jiangxi aerial survey branch was established in Jiangxi province, for the purpose of making the land registrations of this province clear. The precision was quite good after an examination, and it was found that the maximum error of this aerial survey was not more than 5‰. Subsequently, the aerial survey branches were established at other provinces one after another.

At that time, the number of the aerial survey airplanes could reach twelve at most, and the number of the people participating in the survey could reach over two thousands. And this was the period of the great prosperity for the aerial survey during the Republic of China.

4 Topographic Survey

The step of the topographic survey can be divided into three parts, which are minor triangulation (the third and fourth order triangulations), supplementary control survey and topographic mapping respectively. During the Republic of China, the most important departments which implemented the topographic surveys mainly were the general ground survey bureau as well as the land survey bureaus of all provinces. The scale of this topographic survey was mainly 1:50 000. The step of implementing this topographic survey was started from the minor triangulation.

As the main triangulation could not be held in advance, the third and fourth order triangulations were still in the independent nature in the topographic survey. The general method used in this survey was laying the ring-form triangle locks within the survey implementing areas and making them closured. After a ring-form triangle lock was surveyed completely, another would be surveyed subsequently.

The same method continued to be used until the ring-form triangle locks were laid in the survey area totally. Such a layout method was continuously extended within the areas which had no main triangulations, and the accumulation error was very large. When the triangle surveys at two adjacent areas were jointed, it was common for the errors to happen and even these errors could not be corrected in general. Therefore, when the maps of two adjacent areas were jointed, it was common to knock them together inconsistently. And this exerted a very large negative influence on the precision of the map.

5 Land Registration Survey

The land registration survey is higher than the topographic survey in the requirement on the survey precision. According to the "land measurement implementation rules" which was issued by the internal affairs department in the 23th year of the Republic of China, the land registration surveying flow was divided into six steps, which were the main triangulation, the minor triangulation, the supplementary control survey, the individual plot survey, area calculation and drawing respectively.

In the "outline for the land registration implementation procedures of all provinces" which was issued by the 25th year of the Republic of China, it was stipulated that it was necessary for the land registration survey to start from the minor triangulation when the main triangulation had not been held yet. As a matter of fact, there were few of the governmental departments to carry out the minor triangulation owing to the shortage of the technological personnel.

In September of the 29th year of the Republic China, the internal affairs department issued the "principles for implementing the land measurement during the emergency period", which stipulated that the minor triangulation could be held as well and the traverses were used to directly control the individual plots.

During the period of the Republic of China, the scale of applying the aerial survey method for the land registration organization was quite small, and the precision was not higher than that of the general land registration survey method. This survey was mainly carried out in Jiangxi province.

To the 29th year of the Republic China, the aerial survey first group of Jiangxi province completed 144788 registration maps (1:1000) for twenty two counties such as Nanchang and Xinjian; Wuxi aerial survey branch group completed 1550 land registration maps (1:2000) as well as 506 land registration maps (1:1000); and Penghu aerial survey branch group completed 2600 land registration maps (1:1000).

6 Railway and Road Survey

The steps of the railway and road survey can be divided into three stages, which are exploring the spots, preliminary survey as well as location survey. According to the rules which were made by the general railway survey office of the communication ministry, it was necessary to draw the geographical map (1:50000, and 10m or 20m contour intervals) after the spots were explored completely and also a sectional drawing was necessary to be attached below the map. The length plotting scale of the sectional drawing should be 1: 50000 and the height plotting scale should be 1: 5000.

During the period of the preliminary survey, the railway and road survey was divided into four parts, which were inserting big flag, surveying midcourt line, surveying leveling line and surveying topographic condition. Inserting big flag was under the leadership of the captain to give instructions to the marching direction of the midcourt line. And the midcourt line group would survey the theodolite traverse subsequently, and measured an astronomical azimuth at the starting point of the traverse so as to decide the geographical north. Since then, an astronomical azimuth was measured every dozens of miles, or a compass magnetic azimuth was used as the direction control. The breaking angle method was used for the survey of the traverse angle; the inverted position of telescope was used to be directed as the back-vision direction; and then the direct position of telescope was used to read the fold angle of the minus sight direction. The work of the leveling group lied in surveying the sectional map along the midcourt line. Generally speaking, a leveling point was set every one kilometer along the line. The work of the topographic group lied in surveying the topographic map within the 100m along with the surveying line for the alignment to use. Other methods of implementing the survey included using the hand leveling and flexible rule as the transverse section from center peg to left and right, using the theodolite sub-tense technique and using the surveying panel. The general plotting scale was 1:2000 or 1: 5000. The location surveying work and the preliminary surveying work were similar with each other.

7 Sea Way Survey

The government of Qing dynasty attached little importance to the Sovereignty of the territorial sea. For this reason, the sea coasts and rivers were surveyed by the foreigners freely at that time. In the ninth year, the general navy office sent many persons by boat to make a survey on Yong River.

Therefore, the triangle, geographical condition, water front and depth of this engineering were completed as scheduled. In the eleventh year, the navy ministry established the sea way survey bureau in Shanghai and also set the spots for piloting a ship into a harbor.

In the 14th year of the Republic of China, the sea way survey bureau began to make an expansion to the organization units, and hence established five departments (general affairs office, survey department, drawing department, tide observation department and calculation department), and also sent person to learn the surveying technology in the sea way survey bureau of the United States and increased AO’RI and QINGTIAN survey boats.

In the mean time, the customs transferred the surveying work to the sea way survey bureau, and then the "ship notices" and "tide tables" were made and printed under the leadership of the sea way survey bureau. Since then, the department of the navy assigned three surveying boats (GONGSHENG, WUSHENG AND SHISHENG) additionally, manufactured the surveying power boats, and was responsible for adding more steel tubes and standard frames, wireless directing device, electrical depth-sounder, tidal device, flow detector, theodolite and sextant.

However, the water ways from Lingding Island to Guangzhou, from the Yangtze River mouth to Haizhou coast, from Longkou to Dagu coast were not completed. This was because that the war against Japanese aggression was just started, the surveying boats were called to the war areas. Hence, the water way surveying was stopped at that time.

8 Surveying Instrument Manufacturing

During the Republic of China, the surveying instruments which were used by all surveying departments were bought from Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland and other countries. After the war against Japanese aggression, the traffic was blocked, and hence all kinds of the instruments were more difficult to be bought from foreign countries. For this reason, the government of the Republic of China intended to construct its own instrument manufacturing factory.

The central hydraulic equipment factory was founded in the 29th year of the Republic of China.

In the 32th year, over ten surveying equipments were manufactured in this factory by customizing the optical telescope parts and leveling device at Beiping research institute and physics institute and were named as hydraulic c-type leveling instrument. The precision of this leveling instrument was inferior to the import instruments, but could meet the needs of the general projects on the leveling survey.

The surveying factory of the land registration bureau was founded in the 32th year of the Republic of China, and was majored at manufacturing the land registration surveying instruments, mainly including small plates, cloth tape and area calculation meter. The area calculation meter was required to have a quite higher precision, so it was made according to the products of German Otto factory.

The surveying factory of the traffic department was founded in the 33th year of the Republic of China, had quite well-improve devices and could produce the theodolite, leveling instrument, etc. In addition, the instrument repair branch subject to the fourth hall of the military department not only repaired all kinds of the old damaged instruments and also tried to produce all kinds of simple surveying instruments.