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 A History of Blank and Missing Things Thread #55

This lovely and lonely engraving comes from Vincent Wing’s (1643-1726)
 Geodaetes
practicus Redivius¹ (The Art of
Surveying…), a book printed in London
in 1700.  It is a classic work and much
used for over a hundred years—but I’m focused solely in this illustration for
triangulating in the woods.  It is the
image of a stationary forest, a collection of neat trees devoid of movement and
motion and mission, a collection of solitaries, missing wind.  I find it remarkable for being an
illustration that manages to show the missing things that you cannot really
see. 

1. The full title of this work:  Geodaetes practicus redivivus, the art of
surveying: formerly publish’d by Vincent Wing, math., now much augmented and
improv’d, with an appendix thereunto subjoin’d, shewing the whole art of
surveying by a new instrument, called the emperial table : performing exactly
in all respects, and in all cases that can possibly happen in the practical
part of surveying, the work of the theodolite, circumserentor, semi-circle,
chard and needle : with the description and use of a new quadrant : to which is
added by way of supplement, scientia stellarum, containing new and accurate
tables of the planetary motions, whereby the planets places both in longitude
and latitude, the places of the fixed stars, with the eclipses of the
luminaries, are more easily attain’d, than by any yet extant / by John Wing