This page needs to be proofread.
148
BOOK V.

division of the compass—that is at a right angle. Then that part of the lowest cord which lies beyond the part to which the cross-cord runs being removed, it shows at what point the boundary mark should be cut into the rock of the tunnel or drift. The cutting is made in the presence of the two Jurors and the manager and the foreman of each mine. For as the Bergmeister in the presence of these same persons sets the boundary stones on the surface, so the surveyor cuts in the rock a sign which for this reason is called the boundary rock. If he fixes the boundary mark of a meer in which a shaft has recently begun to be sunk on a vein, first of all he measures and notes the incline of that shaft by the compass or by another way with the applied cords; then he measures all the drifts up to that one in whose rock the boundary mark has to be cut. Of these drifts he measures each angle; then the cords, being laid out on the surveyor's field, in a similar way he stretches a crosscord, as I said, and cuts the sign on the rock. But if the underground boundary rock has to be cut in a drift which lies beneath the first drift, the surveyor starts from the mark in the first drift, notes the different angles, one by one, takes his measurements, and in the lower drift stretches a cord beyond that place where he judges the mark ought to be cut; and then, as I said before, lays out the cords on the surveyor's field. Even if a vein runs differently in the lower drift from the upper one, in which the first boundary mark has been cut in the rock, still, in the lower drift the mark must be cut in the rock vertically beneath. For if he cuts the lower mark obliquely from the upper one some part of the possession of one mine is taken away to its detriment, and given to the other. Moreover, if it happens that the underground boundary mark requires to be cut in an angle, the surveyor, starting from that angle, measures one fathom toward the front of the mine and another fathom toward the back, and from these measurements forms a triangle, and dividing its middle by a cross-cord, makes his cutting for the boundary mark.

Lastly, the surveyor sometimes, in order to make more certain, finds the boundary of the meers in those places where many old boundary marks are cut in the rock. Then, starting from a stake fixed on the surface, he first of all measures to the nearest mine; then he measures one shaft after another; then he fixes a stake on the surveyors' field, and making a beginning from it stretches the same cords in the same way and measures them, and again fixes in the ground a stake which for him will signify the end of his measuring. Afterward he again measures underground from that spot at which he left off, as many shafts and drifts as he can remember. Then he returns to the surveyor's field, and starting again from the second stake, makes his measurements; and he does this as far as the drift in which the boundary mark must be cut in the rock. Finally, commencing from the stake first fixed in the ground, he stretches a cross-cord in a straight line to the last stake, and this shows the length of the lowest drift. The point where they touch, he judges to be the place where the underground boundary mark should be cut.

END OF BOOK V.