The Panoramic Camera Applied To Photo-Topographic Work.*

I. INTRODUCTION. THE application of the camera as an adjunct to topographic mapping began practically with its invention, and it has been employed with varying success since that time. With the exception of the camera to be described, the plate-camera has been universally used in this work, thus giving a projection of the area photographed on a flat surface. From such projections or photographs, by the rules of geometry and of perspective, points defining topographic features and seen from at least two camera-stations may be projected upon a ground-plane-the map.1 In 1904 I employed the plate-camera for this purpose in Alaska, but found that the labor necessary to plot the maps, even in a general way, was long and tedious. In 1905 a small Eastman panoramic camera was fitted with spirit-levels, a sightalidade and a transparent scale, introduced inside the camera to register the degree-points in the sky-line of the film-negative; also, arrows to indicate the horizon-line. This was, on the whole, successful; but the details in the topography were not brought out in the views with sufficient clearness, and the photographs were too small. These difficulties were overcome by obtaining a larger and more carefully constructed instrument, which was satisfactorily employed in the field during the year 1906. A panoramic view is made up of an integral number of perspective views upon flat surfaces, and logically is the most ac-