THEWESTINDIES 6l 



is sometimes hard to achieve when panting and sweating on a 

 jungle hilltop after a hard climb. The elements also make ob- 

 serving difficult on many occasions, a heat haze causing the dis- 

 tant mark to dance about in the field of view of the telescope, 

 while a high wind will shake the theodolite and throw it off level 

 despite the erection of wind-breaks. It is always a satisfactory 

 point in a survey when the theodolite observing has been com- 

 pleted, and the position of the marks relative to the origin having 

 been worked out, they are plotted and ringed with convincing 

 red circles on the plotting sheet. Even the plotting needs skill 

 and speed, for in the tropics the paper on which the sheet is 

 plotted may alter its shape from day to day, owing to the differing 

 temperature and moisture of the air. 



One day. Lieutenant R. H, Griffiths was away on Carriacou 

 with a theodolite and was being hampered in his observations by 

 a crowd of West Indian girls who were peering inquisitively into 

 the object end of the theodolite telescope. They thought he was 

 taking photographs of them and they were all anxious to be in 

 the picture. Griffiths hit upon the idea of letting an intelligent- 

 looking male bystander look through the theodolite telescope and 

 then got him to explain to the crowd of women and girls that the 

 officer could see them all 'upside down', as in fact the image seen 

 through a theodolite is always inverted. There was immediate 

 consternation, and all at once stood aside except for one large 

 'mammie' carrying a huge basket on her head who refused to 

 move, and when upbraided by her fellows for her boldness and 

 vulgarity, she said loudly, '1 don't mind ; I'm not like you common 

 women — I wear drawers.' 



Once the copies of the various portions of the plotting sheet 

 have been made by transferring the positions of the stations on 

 to paper pasted on field-boards, the fieldwork itself begins. 

 Fieldwork consists of ship and boat sounding and coastlining. 

 During all these operations the location of details is done by the 

 observer fixing his position by sextant and station pointers, the 

 theory of the latter being as follows : If an observer takes a 

 horizontal angle between two fixed points he knows that his 

 position will lie somewhere along the circumference of a circle 

 passing through these two points. If, at the same time, he observes 



