On Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:57:07 -0700, "CWLee"
wrote:


I inherited (from a building contractor buddy) a small
tool/device. I can't post a photo here, but the visually
imaginative readers can picture what I mean from the
following description.

It is cylindrically shaped, about 1.5" diameter, 6" long, in
a metal case. Lens at each end. Acts as a low-power
telescope. The top of the device has a bubble level, with
optics such that when standing on one side of a room, and
looking across it, one can not only see the other side of
the room but also the bubble level and a horizontal marker.
One can raise and lower the angle of the device so as to get
the bubble in the center of the markings, and that allows
the user to see, on the far wall, what is exactly at eye
level.

I need one of those. For semi-surveying, especially height. The
underbrush has probably grown up already, but in the winter I want to
go to the street 250 feet behind my home, and look back to some mark
or a lamp in the window on my house to see which is higher, the bottom
of my house or the street I refer to. There is a stream in between
which floods, and I was told that the lump of dirt my house and my
townhouse neibhors' house sit on was made high enough that the stream
will flood the road before it reaches my house. I'd like to know for
sure.

I was going to to out with a level and sight along the top of the
level. I'd have to bring sandbags or a clamp to keep the level level,
when doing the sighting, but with your device I could see the levelity
(?), levelness, at the same time I had a magnified view of my house.
Sounds perfect. If you live near DC or Baltimore, maybe I could
borrow it.

The stream is normally 8 feet wide and 8 inches deep, and so far, the
most the water has risen has been to about 50 feet wide and 10 feet
deep, (plus the current is much faster then) which is about 3 inches
below the my lawn, about 20 feet from the house. Plus it would have to
rise another 4 inches to get to the house and another 6 inches to get
in the basment window. So the newly enlarged "river bed" gets a 20
feet wider on my side of the stream if not on the other side. So I'm
99% sure it will never get to the house, but I'd still like to do that
height measurement. Especially since every year one sees about
flooding somewhere. This year it was Rhode Island.

I don't know what building or other application would call
for such information, but that appears to me to be what the
device is designed for.

My question is: What is this called in the trade? In what
trade would that be? Surveying? Plumbing?

I'd like to know those things too. Surveying maybe. I called a
surveyor about 4 in the afternoon once, by accident, but he talked to
me for over 30 minutes. I think he was waiting for 5PM to go home.
So that might be a good time to visit.

Corrections to my understanding, and other comments welcome.