250 Mr. J. Nixon on the Trigonometiical Height 



conical lower l^ miles south-west of Lancaster, erected on 

 a short but steep acclivity* near the margin of the sea, al- 

 though built of wood and standing in a very exposed situa- 

 tion, may nevertheless be the identical mark of the Ordnance 

 Survey, and not its substitute, placed perhaps not exactly on 

 the same base. The sands around being extremely loose, 

 and the difficulty and hazard of transporting the instruments 

 across the Wyre represented as considerable, the idea of 

 making observations at Rossal Landmark was abandoned. 

 Mudge's station on Ingleborough is described as bearing 67 

 yards (=201 feet) east of the old (shepherd's) hut, and 

 marked by a great number of very large stones placed round it. 

 According to one of the secondary triangles, an "old build- 

 ing" on the hill would bear 80° 18' S. W., 200 feet. In 1822, 

 a lofty pike (P), (See Plate, fig. 2.) standing at the western 

 end of an old wall (V) (18 feet long and 4 feet thick), used 

 for hoisting the beacon tar-barrel, bore 80° 2' S.W., 200 feet 

 of a heap of stones, considered to be those marking the sta- 

 tionf ; the theodolite standing, to the best of my recollection, 

 exactly over their centre. As the pike and the " old building" 

 were equidistant from the station and within a foot of the 

 same direction, they were probably identical. In 1829, a pike 

 (Q) on the old wall, undoubtedly the same as the one ob- 

 served in 1822, bore from my signal (S) 88° 37' S.W., 202 

 feet, or about 5 feet north of the previous direction. It may 

 therefore be suspected that the present signal (S) (which is 

 8 feet high and 4 feet in diameter) was built, contrary to my 

 instructions, not on the site of the original one (at the heap 

 of stones), but about 5 feet to the N. by E. The tower (T), 

 18 feet in diameter, bears 84° 40' S.W. of the signal (S), their 

 centres being 197 feet distant. The foundations of the terrace 

 (W), 24 feet in diameter, cover those of the old hut, of which 

 no plan has been preserved. It is not specified from what 

 part of the hut the 201 feet were measured, but the distance 

 from the heap of stones to its centre, supposing it to coincide 

 with that of the tower, will be only 195^ feet. Mr. R. Clap- 

 ham of Feizor (to whom I am indebted for the plan of the 



* The height of the tower top was not observed from any of the stations, 

 but in the calculation of the zenith distances it was estimated at 100 feet 

 above low-water mark. 



t A gentleman resident in Ingleton who had ascended the hill every 

 year from the date of the Colonel's visit, assured me that the stones had 

 never been disturbed in situation. At some of the Ordnance stations 

 I have found a cylindrical block of oak, pierced in the centre, sunk a few 

 feet below the surface of the ground, but none could be discovered either 

 at Ingleborough or the Calf. 



