It'd be interesting to see what our junk closets look like. Your list
sounds like the stuff in my colleges forestry tool room thirty five
years ago but I'm not familiar at all with those clinometer scales.
Could you describe them?
Who'd have ever thought that Abneys and staff compasses would become
collectors items. And metal chains - I'm used to the two-chain trailer
tape. Who still knows how to throw one? One can occasionally find old
Columbia and other scale sticks in antique stores out here. Saw a water
stick just recently that must have been 9 feet long.

All the clinometers are listed and described as modern up-to-date forestry
equipment in the classic text by Henry Solon Graves Forest Mensuration in 1906.
This book has engravings of all these and appear to be inventions of German
foresters. The book also has histories of all known log rules at that time,
dozens of them.
Anyway the clinometers are extremely complicated looking contraptions with
arms sticking out or strings hanging down. Scales with tiny numbers and tiny
lines- that type of thing. It would be better if you could look up the book and
see them yourself. My descriptions would be long and totally inadequate. They
all are based on trigonometry and require the additional math to get a tree
height. Actually I do own a Faustman height measure. I bought it on ebay for
$10. It was the only one I've ever seen other than in the book. It is a
rectangular piece of boxwood about 8"long by 4" high. It has sights on the top
and a fold out mirror about 4" long bottom front. There is a vertical sliding
scale in the middle with a string attached to a small plumb bob at top of this
scale. There is a pie shaped scale that the string is lined up on and read in
the mirror. The sliding scale is for use in mountainous country so the top and
bottom of the tree can be read on the main scale. You sight the tree through
the sights and read the scale in the mirror. Then do the math. The rest of the
clinometers are totally different but just as complicated.

I still use a two chain trailer tape too for running property lines. I use a
reel but if I have to hoof it far I take it off the reel and throw it. I like
to watch a new face while I do it and see the reaction.

Well next time you see an old Columbia scale stick or 9 foot water stick, I
would definately be interested in buying them. Shipping to Michigan on a 9 foot
stick may be a problem though.