Very little is known about how the surveyor worked in the field. The following article is from "The Penny Magazine" (Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge), published in England on August 1, 1840. It was written by an English surveyor after his trip to the New World. While this survey was in lower Canada, conditions must have been similar in the United States. It offers interesting insight into how the field work was performed in times gone by.

"Having spent a second day in making some further exploration and getting our camp a little into order, on the third day I prepared to run our first line of the township that had been previously surveyed, which was the front line of our survey; and employing a two-rod chain (four-rod ones do not answer for the rough woods), I found that in chaining 960 chains (six miles) we varied from one old measurement only four yards, or eight-elevenths of a rod. This was very satisfactory; for as it was desirable that the corners or angles of the lots I was about to survey should correspond with the corners of the lots in the old survey on the opposite side of the division line, I now found there would be no difficulty on this head.

"I next chained one side of my own block, staking, as I went along the points from which the cross-lines were to be taken, then the cross, or end-line, if I may so call one side of a square; and have returned to the old township line, I then ran the other side-line, meeting the end of the last line where I left it, uniting the two lines without either of them varying from the correct length above one-third part of a rod, which I considered good work with a plain seven-inch compass.

"But the method of chaining in the woods remains to be explained: the surveyor (in the instance alluded to it was myself) carries the compass slung under his left arm, and covered with a brass cover or case, except when in use, the sights projecting inwards, one in front, and the other in rear of his person, in order to prevent accidents happening to them where there is a difficulty in creeping through the thick underwood. The compass stand has not three legs, as is usual with mathematical instruments of this sort in open countries, but consists of a single stout staff, well shod with iron pointed with steel, which is stuck firmly in the ground when the surveyor has a sight to take, the head of which is supplied with the ordinary ball and socket on which such instruments traverse.

"Having planted his compass at the commencement of the line he intends to run, and having arranged the sights to the proposed course or particular degree, when the underwood is not thick, it frequently happens that a tolerably clear way may be seen among the trees to a distance of ten or twenty chains, until some stout tree appears to stand upon the exact line that has to be run, and interrupts the view. This tree the surveyor particularly notices, for he calls it a sight-tree; and having slung his compass under his arm, pulled up his compass staff, and called out "chain" (as a signal for the chain-men to commence measuring), he sets off ahead of the chain-men, taking the axe-man along with him, who here and there cuts down small saplings that seem in the way of the chain-men, which serves also to mark the line; and having reached the sight-tree, on which he has kept his eye on the whole way, he goes to the front side of it, and there resets his compass, during which the axe-man is engaged in marking the tree in a particular manner (three, four, or five notches both in front and rear); while the surrounding trees, particularly the young ones, are scored with a similar number of notches on the side of each, looking inwards, or towards the sight-tree. The trees thus marked are called witnesses, and the object in marking them in this manner is, that in case of the sight-tree being cut or blown down hereafter, its place may be nearly ascertained by the position of the witnesses.

"When the chain-men have measured up to the tree in question, the distance, as well as the sort of tree, is noted in the surveyor's field-book. By this time a new object has been taken, and forward goes the surveyor and the axe-man again. He never, however, heads the chain-men so far as to be out of hearing of anything either party may have to communicate; for in order to prevent mistakes of ten chains, he carries a tally-strap round his waist, with sliding rings or pieces of horn upon it; so that when the leading chain man has got to the end of ten chains, and consequently used his whole number (10) of pins or arrows, he calls out to the hind chain-man "tally," the reply to which from the hind chain-man is "tally one," or "tally fifteen," or any other number, as the case may be; upon hearing which, the surveyor counts the tallies he has passed from one side of his belt to the other, to ascertain if the chain-man is correct in his number of tallies, he, as well as the surveyor, carrying a strap round his waist with the number of tallies upon it. If there be no error in counting the number, no remark is made; but if the tallies do not correspond, the matter has to be examined into. It sometimes happens that the underwood is so thick, that it is impossible to see four rods ahead, in which case the chain-men have to assist the axe-man in opening a track sufficiently wide for the surveyor to get a sight through; this, however, makes the work progress very slowly.

"In the survey alluded to, we found three or four cedar swamps, marshy pieces of ground where those trees grow in such close contact, that it is next to impossible to squeeze through among them. Besides, the trees being so close to each other, the ground is generally so boggy that a person will sink knee-deep; and what renders these places still more dreary and dismal the branches of the trees are so intermingled with each other, that the brightest sun that ever shone cannot penetrate the dark foliage one-third of the distance from the top to the ground; so that when fairly within a tolerable-sized cedar-swamp, though at noon on a cloudless summer day, you find yourself in a pitchy darkness. It is impossible, therefore, to run a line with any degree of accuracy through such places until the axe-man, perhaps up to his knees in mud, has exercised his calling, which renders the surveying of a cedar-swamp a slow and disagreeable business; and, when the work is performed, such tracts are absolutely worthless, as no settler, while there is another acre of land to be had, would think of attempting the cultivation of the cedar-swamp."

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