how did people figure out elevation before technology using only sticks and string?
In: Engineering
None of the other commenters have answered the actual root of your question so I’ll give it a shot. The methods for measuring distance and elevation changes on land are refered to as [surveying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying). Before things like GPS, radar mapping satellites, etc. (I’m assuming that’s what you mean by “technology”), surveying was, very broadly speaking, done with a combination of ropes/chains of a known length and various measuring devices to determine the angle of the rope. If you know that your rope is, for instance, 100 meters long and you tie the ends so that both are 1 meter above the ground directly below them, you just need to measure the slope of the rope relative to gravity and you can do some pretty simple geometry to determine the change in elevation *and* the distance when drawn on a map between the ends of the rope. Add in a compass and you’ve got all you need to make a very accurate map with elevation lines. Nowadays it’s possible to skip the ropes/chains in many cases and just use some sort of electronic range finder, but the same basic principles are still used for planing stuff like construction projects to this day; that’s what’s going on when you see people looking through those little binocular things on a tripod around a construction site.
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