in Bermuda.

But the seven-man Royal Engineers unit isn't trying to locate the enemy. The army surveyors are trying to find out where, precisely, the 100 new surveying posts planted around the Island are located.

Modern science several years ago established precisely where the US Naval Air Station is, to the nearest few centimetres, using calculations based on the time taken for random radio waves to travel from quasars in outer space.

But where does the rest of the Island lie? The answers won't affect anybody's property lines. But it will allow boundaries to be identified using precise coordinates instead of things like hedge rows, fences, stakes and tape measures.

It will help resolve property disputes if the hedge is torn down, or the fences and stakes removed. And it will also be important when Bermuda adopts a system of land registration to replace the current practice of owner-held paper deeds.

Teams from Works and Engineering laid out 100 new cement and brass surveying markers around the Island about seven weeks ago. About two weeks ago, the surveying team arrived to find out where these markers are located.

Government's senior land surveyor Mr. Peter Forster said the Island's current "control points'' were put in 1960. But many of those concrete markers have been destroyed, surrounded by buildings, or otherwise rendered unusable.

Mr. Forster said the team, headed by Capt. James Kemp, planned to come to Bermuda to take about nine measurements as part of a project to obtain a global network of satellite measurements.

While in Bermuda, however, it was decided to take the work several steps further and provide Bermuda with a complete grid for surveying purposes.

The global positioning system uses signals from satellites to triangulate positions far more precisely than can be done by traditional surveying means.

Capt. Kemp said the position of the new points should be known to an accuracy of about 10 centimetres.

Because of the satellites' positions, the most accurate readings can be obtained in Bermuda at night. "We haven't had any problems,'' Capt. Kemp said. "People have been very friendly and cooperative.'' "Eventually we would have had to do this ourselves,'' Mr. Forster said.

"It's very fortunate that they came along. We couldn't have done it with the equipment we had, and with a private company it would have been talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.'' WHERE GOVERNMENT STANDS -- Royal Engineer surveyors Capt. James Kemp and Sgt.

Mick Openshaw use global positioning system satellites to discover the House of Assembly's precise location.