h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Groma: The Tool That Built An Empire - A23968740
Author: Bob Stafford (Keeper of The Treacle Shadow) - U3151547

This is an offshoot from the Watling street entry please comment

Okey dokey, I'll have a look through this.

When you write 'gonmon', don't you mean 'gnomon'? But my knowledge if very limited so don't go changing it just because I said so.

"or as it is some times known the surveyor's cross" --> or the surveyor's cross, as it is sometimes known, was

The Upright:
comma between 'pole' and 'metal tipped'.
full stop replacing the comma after 'ground'
'meters' in the English spelling --> 'metres'

Rostro
In the first sentence I assume 'it' is the upright, but it might be better to say this so it's clear.
Does the extension project at a right angle to the upright? I'm having trouble visualising it.
The way you say 'and rotated through 360 degrees' sounds like that was part of the construction process. Making it 'and could be rotated...' would solve this.

Groma
I would suggest adding that the four bits were at right angles to each other.

This is a pretty good description of how the groma works and what it looks like. But it's still hard to visualise without an illustration. I don't know whether the Photographers could do something about that, but failing that you might need to provide a link to a diagram or something on the Net.

Who used the Groma:
"Gromatici; who were general surveyors.
Agrimensores; who were land-surveyors."
What's the difference between general and land surveyors?


Military:
"These were the men who laid out the roads throughout the empire, the were also responsible for surveying the sites of Marching, Camps, Forts and fortifications these men also laid out the coarse of Hadrian’s wall and the Antoine wall."
This needs quite a bit of tidying up.
'These were the men who laid out roads throughout the empire. They were also responsible for surveying the sites of camps and fortifications, including Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall.'
Just curious: what's a marching?

Agricultural:
Is colonies the right word? It doesn't seem right to me . But in any case, it should be 'in the new colonies'. I always thought of colonies as smallish areas centred around a new city - so not any of the territories Rome conquered.


"The roads were surveyed in the same way all through the Roman world, it was impossible to lay out a perfectly straight road over many miles using the groma, this explains the course corrections (slight bends) that occur every few miles."
Full stop between world and 'it'. For the rest, I would suggest: 'However, it was impossible to lay out a perfectly straight road over many miles using the groma, which explains the corrections (slight bends) that occur every few miles.'
It might also be worthwhile saying something about *why* the groma was inaccurate. I presume it's simply because it wasn't a precise instrument and errors crept in because it relied on the operator's eye and the like.

"First the route was surveyed in sections marking out the high points.
After the first stage had been completed the route was surveyed again between the high points to make it as straight as possible."
Does this mean they surveyed it as normal - say, every hundred yards or something - then went back over it on the high points - surveying between high points a thousand yards apart or whatever?


Well, that's my lot, Bob. With that lot done the stay in PR should be substantially reduced . But I'm bound to have missed something.

Hi laconian

Thanks I have done these please have a look and comment...

Looks good. But you're missing a comma before 'or the surveyor's cross...'.

Hi laconian
Thanks for that all done...
Hows the rest of it.

I think it's worth plopping it in PR now. Some people might have comments about the content and understanding the description, but apart from that it looks good.

Ok its on thewy thanks for the comments

For those following this thread, it is now in Peer Review here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F48874?thread=4297989 Thanks for your interest. Bob...