NOTES OX THE NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF N. B. 123 



ranges of highlands, etc., as on Baillie & Kendall's map of 1832. 

 Featherstonhaugh & Mudge's of 1839 (followed on Saunders of 1842), 

 but in these the data were most scanty and the results very erroneous. 

 The hachure topography of the coast line of the admiralty charts is of 

 course accurate, but is too narrow a strip to be of much service. At. 

 the present time the best maps elsewhere represent vertical topography 

 by contour lines ; for New Brunswick absolutely the only published 

 maps using contour lines are the following : first, a very crude folder 

 issued by a steamboat company showing the St. John below Frederic- 

 ton, with neighboring heights, taken from Captain Owen's maps 

 already referred to ; second, some of the surface geology maps, which 

 show a 200 or 220 feet contour line ; third, the United States coast 

 survey chart, No. 300, which shows a detailed and accurate survey 

 with contour lines of a strip of our coast from the Waweig to above 

 St. Stephen, the peninsula below the Ledge being thus the most com- 

 pletely and accurately mapped part of New Brunswick. A proper 

 contour as well as an accurate outline map of the province can be 

 based only upon a unified topographical survey.* 



Naturally questions of first interest in this connection are the 

 value and cost of such a survey. Two publications which give details 

 on this subject are the following : " The Mother Maps of the United 

 States," by Henry Gannett (in National Geographical Magazine, IV., 

 101, 1892), and "Topographical Surveys, their Method and Value," 

 by J. L. VanOrnum (in Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 

 Engineering Series, I., 331, 1896). From these works I gather the 

 following facts : Accurate maps representing to the eye the vertical as 

 well as the horizontal topography have these values — First for military 

 operations ; second, as a basis for property boundaries ; third, for 

 study of water powers, drainage, etc; fourth, for the building of rail- 

 roads, saving immense sums in preliminary surveys ; fifth for selecting 

 the best routes for highways ; sixth, for municipal improvements, 

 water supply, etc ; seventh, as a basis for geological and other special 

 maps. Most civilized countries possess such maps of their territory. 

 Some, but far from all of the United States possess them. The cost 

 of the surveys preliminary to these maps varies immensely with local 

 conditions, scale, accuracy, etc. One of the greatest and best in the 



* If the reader is interested to see a splendid model of modern mapmaking. which is 

 at the same time an illustration of the remarkable liberality of the United States govern- 

 ment to education, he should examine " Physiographic Types," by Henry Gannett, in 

 " Topographic Atlas of the United States'" It may be obtained for 25 cents from the 

 Director of the United States Geological Surrey, Washington, D, C. 



