theodolite

noun

1. A surveying instrument, consisting of a small mounted telescope, used to measure horizontal and vertical angles.

   “I drew outlines (according to my usual custom) of all the hills on the horizon before us, and took angles on them with the theodolite.”

   “The height of those mountains was from five to seven thousand feet above our level, by angular measurement with a theodolite.”

   “It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman told me was a heliograph.”

   “Germany, of all countries, was most vitally concerned in it; but even a cave-dweller in La Fayette Square, seeking only a measure of motion since the Crusades, saw before his eyes, in the spring of 1903, a survey of future order or anarchy that would exhaust the power of his telescopes and defy the accuracy of his theodolites.”

   “The process of setting up a theodolite is carried out in three stages: centring the theodolite, levelling the theodolite and elimination of parallax.”