134 EEAR-xVDMIRAL F. W. BEECHEY'S ADDRESS. [May 26, 1856. 



In February, 1838, he read a paper on the State of Geographical 

 Knowledge and the Construction of Maps in the Dark Ages, with 

 an account of their revival in the sixteenth century. He was a 

 Fellow of this, of the Antiquarian, and of several other learned 

 Societies. 



Geographical Progress. 



The great military events in which the country has been engaged 

 during the past year, and the objects to which the energies of the 

 nation have necessarily been directed, may naturally be supposed to 

 have diverted attention from those pursuits of science which are not 

 of a military character. Although this may be true in some respects, 

 yet much has been accomplished in the branch of science which we 

 cultivate, and but few of the meetings of the Society have passed 

 without some addition to our store of geographical knowledge. 



Europe. 



Great Britain — Ordnance Survey. — The present year will be marked 

 as a great epoch in the history of the geography of our own country. 

 The Trigonometrical Survey, which commenced, in 1784, under 

 General Eoy, r.e., has just been brought to a close under Lieut.- 

 Colonel James, r.e., the present zealous superintendent of the 

 Ordnance Survey. The principal object which the Government had 

 in view when the Trigonometrical Survey was commenced, was the 

 determination of the difference of longitude between the observa- 

 tories of Greenwich and Paris ; and for this purpose a base line 

 was measured on Hounslow Heath, from which a series of tri- 

 angles, including the Observatory of Greenwich as one of the 

 points, was carried to Dover and the opposite coast of France. 

 The French geometricians at the same time extended their ope- 

 rations also to the coast, and the connection between the triangu- 

 lations of the two kingdoms was made by conjoint simultaneous 

 observations. 



This chain of triangles from Hounslow to Dover was then made 

 the basis of the Topographical Survey, which was also in progress 

 at that time under the Master-General of the Ordnance ; and from 

 Hounslow as a starting point, the triangulation has been carried 

 over the whole extent of the United Kingdom. Lieut.-Colonel 

 James has recently communicated to the Eoyal Society the principal 

 results of the Trigonometrical Survey, in a paper ' on the Figure, 



