ing, for
nal and
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ont and
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eld job
nployee
not be
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togram-
be in-
e hands
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iniques,
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uld be
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phy and
urnal of
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INEERING
rveys in
ser, Vol.
ust 1933.
eport of
tion EM-
Plotter,"
Vol. X,
“A Vege-
”,
graphs,
is not yet
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING 31
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING, Vol. V,
30-42, 1939.
8. Wieslander, A. E., and Wilson, R. C., ''Classi-
fying Forests and Other Vegetation from Air
Photographs,” PHOTOGRAMMETRIC EN-
GINEERING, Vol. VIII, No. 3, 203-315, 1942.
Soil, CONSERVATION SERVICE
An urgent need for reliable data regard-
ing soil erosion, land use and other soil
conditions led to Congress establishing the
Soil Conservation Service in 1935. The
major part of the more critical areas of the
United States had never been mapped or
classified for soil condition and the re-
mainder was covered by small-scale or re-
connaissance maps which for the most
part were unsuitable for soil studies.
The magnitude of the job soon proved
that conventional ground methods were
inadequate and in 1935 the use of aerial
photographs for large-scale and accurate
maps at 1:15,840 was begun.?%1% The first
work covered 79 demonstration areas com-
prising 5,273 square miles. Radial line
plotting with hand templets of acetate
was used to establish ground points and
the map details were traced from the
photographs to an acetate projection.
The conclusion that this method was
not wholly satisfactory led to one of the
most important inventions in photo-
grammetry, namely the development of
the “Slotted Templet Method” in 1936
by C. W. Collier of the Soil Conservation
Service.'219 This simple device—a stiff
piece of paper with radial slots cut into
it—made possible the mass-production of
photogrammetric maps at low cost and
great speed. Today practically every
country engaged in mapping uses this
device in one form or another.
Slotted-templet triangulation provided
an economical method for making con-
trolled mosaics. These mosaics proved in-
valuable for study, planning and recording
of soil conservation data.
An overhead reflecting projector was
designed and built by Soil Conservation
Service in cooperation with J. G. Saltzman
Company of New York for the transferring
of detail from photograph to map. In 1940
the Service added two Multiplex units to
its equipment.
The Service also pioneered in the use of
high altitude, small-scale, photography for
control purposes. In 1938 it used Coast
and Geodetic Survey 9-lens photographs
to extend control in sparsely-controlled
areas in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and
New York. In 1940 it used 4-inch focal
length photography at inch-to-the-mile-
scale, and thereby reduced the amount of
field work by as much as 509. Small-scale
photography for control extension also
proved successful in providing supple-
mental control used in conjunction with
large-scale photography of the same
terrain.
The Kelsh Plotter, which turned out
Fic. 1. The Magruder slotter and center punch.