32 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



has its own problems of cadastral survey which absorb a consider- 

 able part of the survey staff's effort. 



Each of the British Colonies, Protectorates and Mandated areas 

 (except the Gambia) has a survey department whose duties are 

 (i) triangulation and topographical mapping: (2) cadastral sur- 

 veying, including the delineation of property boundaries and 

 town-planning. Expert advice on the correlation and the direction 

 of survey policy is tendered by the Colonial Survey Committee 

 and also by the War Office. 



With increased settlement and competition for land there is a 

 tendency for property and settlement surveys to come into promi- 

 nence to the detriment of topographical work. Topographical m.aps, 

 where they exist at all, are seriously out of date for many areas, and 

 very little work in geodetic triangulation is being done. Most 

 authorities at home recommend the development of triangulation 

 and topographical mapping in the colonies, and with this in view 

 the representation on the Colonial Survey Committee, of expert 

 opinion on geodesy, has recently been increased. 



In view of the limited resources of the Colonial Governments 

 it seems probable that the extension of such work must depend 

 on the allocation by the Imperial Government of special funds for 

 the purpose. Moreover, some kind of inter-colonial organization 

 would be desirable. It might be possible to form a single geodetic 

 survey department for British Africa. Some experts would go so 

 far as to suggest an Imperial Geodetic Department similar to the 

 Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty, but others argue that 

 the control of African surveys would be best exercised from some 

 point in Africa. The case for centralized control was put forward 

 by Brigadier Macleod (1936) at the Conference of Empire Survey 

 Officers in 1935, and discussed by delegates from the Union of 

 South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and most of the colonies. Various 

 difficulties were put forward, but all delegates were agreed as to 

 the desirability of central co-ordination of geodetic surveys, and all 

 were willing to be given a lead by the Imperial Government. The 

 Royal Society, at the request of the National Committee for Geo- 

 desy and Geophysics, has addressed a memorandum to the Imperial 

 Government urging it to undertake responsibility for geodetic work 

 in the Empire. Whether or not the ideal can be attained, it seems 



