THE FIRST DAY’S WORK 21 
and arcs with degrees measured off on them, and a 
thin flat metal base about two inches wide and twelve 
long. The stadia rod, which would be carried in ad- 
vance, to sight upon through the telescope part of 
the alidade, was just a long straight slab of light 
wood an inch thick, four inches wide and twelve feet 
long; with a strip of linoleum, painted across with 
red stripes an inch apart and having black numbers 
to mark the feet, tacked on one side. 
Aided by a general map of the forest and Jack- 
son’s familiarity with conditions in his district, 
Frazer succeeded at length in drawing up a sort of 
baseline itinerary, subject of course to frequent 
changes in the field as conditions should later dic- 
tate; though our immediate plans were fairly simple. 
Kingston lies, as I think I said, at the foot of the 
eastern slope of the Black Range, some four miles 
from the top of the range and about three quarters 
of the way along the range from the Datil boundary. 
So it was decided to work the short southern end of 
the range first. The baseline Frazer proposed to 
carry at once from where we were to the top of the 
main ridge, straight away. Then south along the 
top, while the cruisers worked east and west from it 
until we reached the southern limit of timber. 
There the proposed course swung westward in a 
horseshoe curve and turning north again tapped 
the timbered country on the west side of the range, 
over the divide, until we got far enough north to 
come abreast of our first camp west of Kingston. 
