button to main menu  Greenwood and Hodgson 16.8.1823
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Westmorland Gazette, 16 August 1823:-
  letter from C Greenwood
(ADVERTISEMENT.)
TO THE EDITOR OF THE GAZETTE.
SIR, - Can any one read the Letters of this reputed Subscriber of Mr. Hodgson's, without perceiving in them the manifest identity, both of style and interest, with those of Mr. Hodgson himself? Are not the words, in many instances, the same? - the apparently wilful misconceptions of the meaning of my statements? - and all the coarse slang and cant phrases occasionally resorted to, all exactly savouring of one rustic channel, wanting the polish and refinement of information and experience, and ill according with that clearness of comprehension which is the distinguishing characteristic of ideas formed under the powerful influence of mathematical studies? That my arguments are defeated, with these Gentlemen may be current, when I proceed beyond the reach of their conceptions. I am commanded to teach them - may I not say so - when I am threatened with imputations the most degrading, if I do not convey to them in the columns of a public print, what they term the manner of my Survey? It will be remembered that Mr. Hodgson in his first letter, rested its accuracy upon the operations of the chain; and the one which followed, from, I have no doubt, the same source, named the chain only in the projection of the work - this was their data and their boast! And not until after I had apprised them of the necessity for a trigonometrical basis, had Mr. Hodgson ever named that description of process as connected with his Survey; but now he states 'tis well known to many that he conducts it upon the scientific basis of trigonometrical observations,. If the word conduct, in this statement, is not a misprint, he would do well to change it for a more appropriate one, and say he constructs it upon a basis from trigonometrical observations. In my own mind I have no doubt, that this process will be new to him, and if so the preparation of his Diagrams will cost him more than half the amount of his present Subscription, this work will provide a respite for the chain; and, not during pleasure, but, from absolute necessity. And when completed, his Subscriber may have ocular demonstration that these things are unwieldy material for the columns of a newspaper. This brings me to the recollection of a dispute I once had with the Guard of a Mail, who insisted upon it they (the Diagrams) were too large for his coach. It is truly laughable to read Mr. Hodgson's proposition of making a cheap 30s. Map of Westmorland, because he will do it all himself with the chain. Such representations would have been better received a century ago, when Surveys of Counties were made by measuring (I dare say laboriously enough) different districts, and laying them together regardless of their true Scientific bearings. But now the state of things is different. Science has opened her eyes upon an expanded field; and, like children correcting the errors of visionary delusion by the demonstration of a more substantial examination of things, we are at length taught to comprehend something of the constructive figure of the Earth, and to delineate, with consistency, that portion of it we have been designed by Providence to inhabit. And my determination is unalterably fixed, with the permission of the Author of my existence, (in granting me health and the retention of my faculties for a period equal to the task,) to complete, agreeably with my engagement, a British Atlas, the first ever made on Scientific Principles, from Actual Survey. - I shall here repeat, that nothing will give me greater pleasure, than to exhibit to such of the Gentlemen of Westmorland, as may be sufficiently interested in the case, the Diagrams of our work in the different stages of our Survey, and illustrate the same by a detail of our operation; this I have done in the library of one of the first Princes in Europe, and which has procured me the honour of Royal Patronage.
I am, Sir,
You obedient Servant,
C. GREENWOOD.
Kendal, King's Arms Inn, Aug. 12th, 1823.
Also in the Kendal Chronicle 16 August 1823.

Summary

from - C Greenwood
to - the Editor, replying to A Subscriber
ANONYMITY are you not TH in disguise?
SURVEYING METHODS chain and trigonometry, TH didn't mention the latter till I did; we have shown our methods to the royalty and have royal patronage
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