Abstract: The Significance of the rock stress measurements for studying state of stress in the crust is elucidated in this paper .A brief introduction on the principles and methods of calculating the rock stress by measuring the deformations of the bore-holes by means of the overcoring technique is given .Generally the error is estimated to be about 10% by the laboratory checking methods .Form the practical examples it is summed up for some laws of the stress distribution within 200 meters of the shallow crust: from the viewpoint of the rock-mass strength and energy accumulation, the relationship between the major principal stress and the elastic modules of the rock is shown in diagrams, and its direction is closed related to the topographical conditions .The practical examples reveal the measurement of rock stress is significant to the ground surface and underground engineering projects .