438 THE INDIAN FOREST SURVEY. [Nov. 



the Eevenue Survey Branch ; but such lands are unassessed, either 

 because they consist of broken ground, or because they are covered 

 with dense jungle, or because they cannot be irrigated, and the 

 accurate survey of such ground being both difficult and expensive, 

 the preparation of fully detailed maps of them was not, a few 

 years ago, considered to be M'arranted by the use tliat could be made 

 of them for revenue purposes ; hence it follows that when such tracts 

 were shown in the revenue maps, they were usually surveyed in 

 less detail than the cultivated and revenue-payiug country. But 

 the most extensive and valuable forest tracts are situated within 

 the area dealt with by the Topographical Branch, and thus it follows 

 that maps of them on a larger scale than 1 in. = 1 mile cannot be 

 looked for from the Imperial Survey Department. 



In the early days of forest management, maps on small scales 

 and without much detail sufficed ; but it is obvious that, to fulfil the 

 numerous requirements which a more rational system involved, 

 detailed maps on a large scale became an absolute necessity, and in 

 1872 measures were taken to provide them. It would have been 

 inconvenient to the Surveyor-General's Department to be called 

 upon to undertake the survey on an unusual scale of numerous com- 

 paratively small areas scattered throughout the country, while it 

 was recognised that the maps were destined to meet special depart- 

 mental requirements, and that there would be many advantages if 

 their preparation were entrusted to a special branch of the Forest 

 Department working under the control of the Surveyor-General. 

 This arrangement was therefore ordered, and it has since worked 

 most satisfactorily ; the Superintendent of Forest Surveys has largely 

 profited by the relationship in which he has been placed to the 

 Surveyor-General, and at the same time the Government has secured 

 a guarantee as to the quality of the work executed by him. 



The scale on which the forest maps should be drawn formed the 

 subject of much discussion, and in 1874 the officer who had been 

 appointed Superintendent of Forest Surveys, happening to be on 

 leave in England, was deputed by the Secretary of State to visit the 

 Forest Survey Offices in France, Saxony, Bavaria, and Baden, in 

 order to study the system adopted in the preparation of forest maps 

 in those countries. On the one hand, it was essential that when the 

 ground was gone over, the survey should be made oil a sufficiently 

 large scale to answer the special requirements on account of which it 

 was undertaken, and that it should be executed on such a system 

 and with such a degree of accuracy as would admit of its being 

 made the basis of any further woik that might subsequently be 

 required ; while on the other hand, as the cost of a survey increases 

 at a high rate with an increase in the scale, it was necessary to 



