Measurement of Survey Lines:

After fixing a survey stations and ranging the survey lines by locating the intermediate stations, the next step in chain surveying is to measure the horizontal distances along the survey lines and the distances of features of interest from the survey line (offsets) so that a representative and authentic survey map is constructed.

The measurement process is begin along with unfolding the chain and ends up with its folding back. For unfold a chain, both of its end handles are held in one hand and the bundled chain is thrown along the direction of survey line with the help of other hand. The follower surveyor at starting station with zero ends and the leader surveyor drags the other end of chain along the survey line, till the chain is fully stretched and lies along the straight survey line. Arrows are fixed at the end of every chain length denoting intermediate stations aligned along original main survey line. The arrows are so fixed in which they just touch the groove marks on the chain. Every arrow represents a distance equal to chain length. Any fractional distance at end is measured by counting the tags on chain and its links. The total length of survey line could, therefore, be simply acquired.

At the end of the measurement process, the chain is needed to be folded back and bundled before keeping it in survey store for any future use. The folding procedure starts with holding the chain from middle and folding it by holding each pair of links at a time, or bundling till both the ends are acquired.