Gauss and the Litberg
From the summer of 1821, Gauss had commissioned the surveying of his kingdom on behalf of the Hanoverian king George IV. With a sextant and mirrors, together a heliotrope, Gauss and his "helpers" climbed onto impassable hilltops and dilapidated church towers.With the help of heliotrope and the sun reflexes, Gauss was able to reach pinnacles and towers that were many kilometers away, but encountered problems in the North German plains, "where he almost misses heights," he complained. His helpers had to hit the clearing in the woods to give him a clear view. In the summer of 1823 Gauss had finally measured in extensive triangulation large parts of northern Germany - up to the then Danish Altona. The crowning achievement in the following two years was to become the last missing link: the trigonometric chain - outlined on the ten-mark billet between the endpoints of the existing Danish triangle network (Hamburg-Hohenhorn) and the easternmost leg of the Dutch degree measurement (Jever-Varel).
The Litberg played a very important role. On September 27, 1824, Gauss was delighted: "Many houses of Altona can be seen on the Litberg." The Zeven church tower was also visible from the Litberg, and the Zevener tower in good weather, if not the smoke of peat bogs darkened the sky, a line of sight to Bremen.The net was knotted, the work accomplished.