[1886]. Working scale. A working scale is a scale used in making a map. It may be a scale for paces or strides or revolutions of a wheel.
[1887]. Length of pace. The length of a man's pace at a natural walk is about 30 inches, varying somewhat in different men. Each man must determine his own length of pace by walking several times over a known distance. In doing this be sure to take a natural pace. When you know your length of pace you merely count your paces in going over a distance and a simple multiplication of paces by length of pace gives your distance in inches.
In going up and down slopes one's pace varies. On level ground careful pacing will give you distances correct to within 3% or less.
The following tables give length of pace on slopes of 5 degrees to 30 degrees, corresponding to a normal pace on a level of 30.4 inches:
| Slopes | 0° | 5° | 10° | 15° | 20° | 25° | 30° |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Length of step ascending | 30.4 | 27.6 | 24.4 | 22.1 | 19.7 | 17.8 | 15.0 |
| Length of step descending | 30.4 | 29.2 | 28.3 | 27.6 | 26.4 | 23.6 | 19.7 |
For the same person, the length of step decreases as he becomes tired. To overcome this, ascertain the length of pace when fresh and when tired and use the first scale in the morning and the latter in the afternoon.
The result of the shortening of the pace due to fatigue or going over a slope, is to make the map larger than it should be for a given scale. This is apparent when we consider that we take more paces in covering a given distance than we would were it on a horizontal plane and we were taking our normal pace.
In going up or down a slope of 3 or 4 we actually walk 5 units, but cover only 4 in a horizontal direction. Therefore, we must make allowance when pacing slopes.
In counting paces count each foot as it strikes. In counting strides count only 1 foot as it strikes. A stride is two paces.