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C O L U M N Grids & Datums

THE STATE OF ISRAEL

The contents of this column reflect the In 1865, Captain C. W. Wilson, RE to the Dead Sea, connecting it with
views of the author, who is responsible
(later Major General Sir Charles Wil- the original Palestine control frame-
for the facts and accuracy of the data
presented herein. The contents do not son), surveyed the City of Jerusalem work near Beersheba. In December
necessarily reflect the official views or at a scale of 1:2,500. The success of 1913, Captain S. F. Newcomb, RE
policies of the American Society for Wilson’s survey led directly to the was given charge of a large survey-
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and/
establishment of an association ing and archeological expedition
or Louisiana State University.
called the Palestine Exploration which started in Gaza and was to
Archaeological evidence has un-
Fund (PEF). November of 1871 was cover the entire Sinai Peninsula.
covered the existence of man during
the beginning of the PEF surveying One member of that expedition in-
the Paleolithic Period (Old Stone
and mapping activities, and by 1874 cluded T. E. Lawrence, later known
Age) in what is now modern Israel.
Lieutenant H. H. Kitchener, RE as Lawrence of Arabia! Close re-
During the subsequent Neolithic Pe-
(later Field Marshal Lord Kitchener marked, “It was doubtless the expe-
riod (New Stone Age), humans had
of Khartoum), arrived to assist Lieu- rience which Lawrence gained on
cultivated crops and built towns,
tenant C. R. Conder in the first suc- this expedition that justified his be-
such as Jericho, by 7,000 BC. Israel
cessful mapping expedition of the ing commissioned into the Director-
is hilly in the North, and its highest
entire region since Napoleon’s at- ate of Military Survey in September
peak is Mt. Meron at l,l25 m (3,692
tempt. Conder’s report speaks of oak 1914, where he was immediately in-
ft). It is bounded on the North by
forests and bears, wolves, wild pig, volved in the compilation of the
Lebanon, on the West by the Medi-
cheetah, deer, antelope, and a great map of Sinai.” Lawrence’s carto-
terranean Sea, on the East by Syria
variety of game birds. The fauna graphic drafting work of Israel be-
and Jordan, by Egypt to the South-
were the same as reported in the tween Gaza and Aqaba was per-
west, and by the Negev Desert to the
Bible except for the lion, last re- formed in Cairo where he also
South with the Gulf of Aqaba at its
corded by the Crusaders in the 12th interviewed prisoners, processed in-
extreme Southern port. The State of
century. The surveying and mapping telligence data from agents behind
Israel was established by decree of
was completed by 1878 and com- enemy lines, and produced a hand-
the United Nations on 15 May 1948.
prised 26 sheets, all based on a book on the Turkish Army.
The first serious mapping of Is-
single Cassini-Soldner projection Although a gridded version (ref-
rael on modern lines was under-
with a Central Meridian erenced to the Bessel 1841 ellipsoid)
taken in 1798 by Napoleon, as an ex-
(l o) = 34° 56' East of Greenwich. The of Conder’s one-inch to the mile
tension of his survey of Egypt. A
ellipsoid of reference was the map series was used by the Egyptian
Topographic Section was formed
Clarke 1866. There was no Grid asso- Expeditionary Force during W.W. I,
which consisted of four officers, an
ciated with this sheet series where there was also a need for larger
astronomer, and four “intelligent
each map measured 15' from north to scale maps of the Palestine for artil-
soldiers.” Bases were measured at
south and 22' from east to west. Sir lery and tactical purposes. The Brit-
Alexandria and Cairo by the “Ser-
Arden-Close remarked, “It is inter- ish Forces had no town maps of
vice Topographique de l’Armee
esting to note that the field work some of the key towns of Palestine.
d’Egypte,” and topographic maps
was done by prismatic compass and Towns situated beyond the front
were compiled using a 10 km grid
that no plane-table was used, line, such as Gaza, Beersheba,
with an origin at the great pyramids
of Giza. The coastline depicted on though, in general, the country Ramleh, and others were photo-
these early French topographic lends itself remarkably well to graphed by the Aerial Squadrons
maps was actually based on British plane-tabling. The reason given by and maps of those towns were made.
Admiralty Charts. Survey work on Conder was that the members of the The first map, that of Gaza, was pro-
the ground was completed late in party moved everywhere on horse- duced on 25 January 1917, and was
1801, and, by the end of 1803, com- back, and that a plane table is an in- probably the first town-map ever
pilation in Paris had reached a stage convenient thing to carry on a made using aerial photographs.
where the maps could be engraved horse.” Conder and Kitchener super- Other maps produced during 1918,
on copper plates. The sheets were vised Stanford’s engraving of the fi- such as those of Nablus and El-
printed in 1808, but Napoleon or- nal maps in 1881. Kerek ,were maps that demonstrated
dered that they should remain under In 1883-4, Kitchener accompa- a new solution to the problem of the
seal as state secrets. The maps were nied an expedition and carried out a use of aerial photographs for the
not finally published until 1817. triangulation from a base at Aqaba CONTINUED ON PAGE 916

CLIFFORD J. MUGNIER, C.P., C.M.S.

PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING August 2000 915

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Grids & Datums C O L U M N

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 915 (Jerusalem)) having the geographic warm a professor’s heart, but they
purpose of mapping towns situated coordinates f o = 31° 44' 02.749" N, generally drive cartographers, and
in hilly areas. Town-maps for the l o = 35° 12' 39.29" East of Greenwich graduate students, nuts!
Palestine Front were an immediate + 04.200” E = 35° 12' 43.490". The ad- About 10 years ago, I was teach-
necessity, not an academic exercise, dition of 04.200” to the longitude is ing my once every other year grad
and the war served as an immediate in accordance with the decision in course in coordinate systems. On
catalyst. The new Survey of Pales- 1928 to adopt the French value for the occasion of a 3-day weekend, I
tine department (now the Survey of the longitude at the points of junc- assigned a computational problem
Israel) was established by the Occu- tion 73’M and 98’M in the north, and for intersecting ellipsoidal loxo-
pied Enemy Territory Administra- to correct all Palestine longitudes dromes with grid lines of a constant
tion after the war, and therefore in- accordingly. Palestine longitudes value as are found for offshore oil
herited some good topographic were originally based on those of leases in the Gulf of Mexico as well
maps. They were then able to con- Egypt at the Transit of Venus sta- as the Palestine Grid limits. The
centrate on improving the triangula- tion, and a correction of 3.45” was problem is particularly involved be-
tion network and connecting it with indicated to the Egyptian longi- cause it is iterative between isomet-
the French triangulation in Syria, as tudes. Imara Base (1’M or 5’DM) is ric space and in this Louisiana in-
well as carrying out cadastral sur- the original false origin of the Grid stance, Gauss-Krüger space for
veys for land settlement. coordinates (i.e., FN = FE = 100 km) UTM. On the first day of class after
Under the post-WWI Mandate, for the Cassini-Soldner Civil Grid. the holiday, I had the students pass
Lebanon and Syria (the Levant) Final implemented Cassini-Soldner their homework solutions up to me.
were protectorates of France, while False Easting is then 170,251.555 m, They then nervously asked me to
Israel and Jordan, collectively False Northing = 126,867.909 m. show the solution on the black-
called Palestine and Trans-Jordan, A military version of this system board. I complied, filling about
were protectorates of Great Britain. based on the Gauss-Krüger Trans- three blackboards with the compu-
As a result, the northern reaches of verse Mercator is identical to the tational solution. One of the stu-
Israel are also covered by the Levant Civil Cassini-Soldner Grid, except dents in class then asserted, “Yes
Zone. This is a particularly difficult for the False Easting at False Origin sir, that is correct.” Stunned, I
Grid system because it was devel- where 1,000,000 meters is added, thanked the lady graduate student
oped by General Sevki of Syria and and for coordinates used for the for the validation! (She later got an
is based on the French Army Trun- southern Sinai while it was still oc- “A” in the course). The point to all
cated Cubic Lambert (partially) Con- cupied by the Israelis, an additional of this is that there are many “Brit-
formal Conic. Earlier Turkish Otto- 1,000,000 meters was added south of ish Grids” still extant throughout
man topographic maps of the the South False Origin! Of course, the world that have boundaries de-
Levant, northern Israel, and the Pal- that is now defunct. fined by ellipsoidal loxodromes.
estine were on the Turkish Bonne Hagar further observed that, “I Furthermore, shipping lanes, called
Grid. The joins and transformations don’t normally pay much attention Safety Fairways and Traffic Separa-
among the Levant Zone, the Turkish to the limits of a Grid but here it tion Schemes (TSS), are defined by
Bonne, and the Palestine Grid (men- might be of interest. North is the end points connected by ellipsoidal
tioned below) are the source of de- 150,000 meter Northing Grid line of loxodromes. This is one of the reali-
cades of computational heartburn the Levant Zone. This was rede- ties of contemporary computational
for cartographers; not to mention my fined, probably as a line of latitude, cartography that the GIS Mapping
graduate students’ homework prob- when the Levant Zone was elimi- Scientist may encounter in the real
lems . . . . nated. East is the meridian of 39° E. world.
John W. Hagar, formerly with DMA/ South is a loxodrome from 19° N, My first job in mapping was as a
NIMA, offered that the Palestine Da- 39° E to 26° 45' N, 35° E, thence west junior map draftsman for Offshore
tum of 1928 has its origin at station on parallel of 26° 45' N to 70,000 Navigation, Inc. (ONI) (now out of
Number 2 where: Fo = 31° 18' 06.27" meter Easting Grid line. West is the business) in New Orleans during
North, Lo = 34° 31' 42.02" East of 70,000 meter Easting Grid line. You the early 1960s. In later decades,
Greenwich, the ellipsoid of reference is will see that the Grid is not sym- ONI retained me for consulting
the Clarke 1880 where a = 6,378,300.789 metrical east and west and thus can work for various coordinate system
meters, 1/f = 293.466004983713280, be extended into the Sinai which is puzzles they encountered from
and elevation = 98.9 m. The Cassini- precisely what Israel did when they time-to-time. In the early 1980s,
Soldner Civil Grid of 1933 (origin occupied the Sinai.” I have noticed ONI received a curious message
adopted is the principal point 82’M that ellipsoidal loxodromes will CONTINUED ON PAGE 916

916 August 2000 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING

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Y E A R B O O K

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 916
from Israel and I was asked to solve
the problem. Four points were given:
Zikhron Yaakou, Tel Aviv, Ashdod,
and Khan Yunis. Coordinates were
furnished in Latitude and Longitude
and in X and Y coordinates. No
other explanation was offered to me
(or to ONI). Objective: figure out
how one set of coordinates related to
l =34° 38' 17.396" E, and on ED 50,
f = 31° 50' 01.8994" N, l =34° 38' 13.6922"
E. (No elevations were offered).
In October of 1989, Dr. Ron K. Adler,
director general of the Survey of Israel,
offered that the “new” Usrlurim Da-
tum origin at station Urim was : Fo =
31° 20' 42.687" North, L o = 34° 28'
02.835" East of Greenwich. The Israel
New Datum is referenced to the GRS
f = 32° 05' 21.16923" N,
l = 34° 51' 26.51726" E. h = 82.526m
(height above ellipsoid).
Thanks for the help on this col-
umn go to Russell Fox of the
UK Ordnance Survey, John W. Hagar
(retired from DMA/NIMA), Mal Jones
of Perth, Australia, and others.

Did you miss

the other and “solve the problem, 1980 ellipsoid where a = 6,378,137 m,
Cliff.” Knowing what the Datums and 1/f = 298.2572215381489. The 7-

Grids and Datums

and Grids of the Palestine, and par-
ticularly Israel, used, I started try-
ing the permutation of systems. The
trial-and-error solution yielded the
fact that someone in Israel offered
the coordinates of the four points in
geodetic coordinates referenced to
the European Datum of 1950 (Inter-
national 1924 ellipsoid), and the co-
ordinates of the same four points in
Cassini-Soldner Grid coordinates in
meters referenced to the Palestine
Datum of 1928 on the Clarke 1880 el-
lipsoid. Therefore, Palestine 1928 to
European Datum 1950 is : DX = – 76
meters, DY = +64 meters, DZ = +442
meters. For instance, Ashdod on
Palestine 1928, f = 31° 50' 07.039" N,
Parameter Datum shift from the Israel
New Datum to WGS84 Datum are: DX =
– 23.500 meters, DY = – 18.190 meters,
DZ = – 17.530 meters, Scale = +5.43 X from a
previous journal?
106, Rx = – 0.30 arc seconds, R y = –1.84
arc seconds, and Rz = +1.64 arc sec-
onds. The new Grid system is defined ............
as being a Gauss-Krüger Transverse
Grids and Datums
Mercator where fo = 31° 44' 03.817" N,
lo = 35° 12' 16.261" East of Greenwich, and other parts of PE&RS
False Northing = 626907.39m, False are now available on the
Easting = 219,529.584m. The Scale ASPRS web site.
Factor at Origin is 1.0000067 for the
New Israel Grid. For example, on the Go to
New Israel Grid: X = 186,691.878m, www.asprs.org/publications.
Y = 666,264.4m, Z = 82.545m (height
above ellipsoid), the corresponding
WGS 84 Datum coordinates are:

............

PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING August 2000