ST Gill's image of surveyors at work in virgin bush shows the difficulties of the task. Two men hold the end of the gunter's chain and arrows, used for measuring distances, and a man cuts a blaze into the tree, which will mark the position where this particular position sight was taken. A fourth man reads the angles on his theodolite. In the background a fifth man stands with the wagon containing their supplies.

William Light, in his Brief journal also writes of the difficulties he and his team of surveyors underwent in the virgin bush in South Australia in 1836-37. At that stage they did not even have horses or oxen to pull their carts, but used a hand cart, or as Light vividly writes, carried their equipment on their shoulders while walking dozens of miles in a working day.

Frome in his Colonial surveying also outlines the difficulties for the early surveyors, and also differentiates between explorers and surveyors, and between the surveying of new territory and surveying in established towns and settled regions.

Gill, S. T. (Samuel Thomas), 1818-1880

State Library of South Australia: Mortlock Wing. Taking it to the edge August 2004-