SURVEYS AND MAPS 45 



valuable results would be achieved by deviating to the east along 

 the Abyssinian-Sudan frontier and thus fixing this vague frontier 

 on a geodetic basis. It has been estimated roughly that ^{^40,000 

 to ;;^50,ooo would be necessary for this work, which, with ;^2,ooo 

 for the Ruanda sector, makes a heavy sum, most of which would 

 be expended on salaries for European officials. The outlay would 

 be large but by the time the work was finished there would already 

 be some return of an indirect kind. Brigadier Winterbotham has 

 pointed out, moreover, that the completion of the 30th arc would 

 cost Africa very little if the War Office were persuaded to lend 

 staff. Engineer officers have to gain experience, and work in this 

 region would provide the best possible training. 



TOPOGRAPHY AND PUBLICATION OF MAPS 



An important centre for British Africa is the Geographical Sec- 

 tion, General Staff, of the War Office, where small-scale maps are 

 published for all British Africa and maps of foreign territories are 

 prepared when required for strategic purposes. The principal 

 series is on a scale of i :2, 000,000 (3 1 J miles to the inch), and covers 

 the whole Continent in thirty-four sheets, of which most are now 

 on sale. This series is published by the British War Office and the 

 French Service Geographique de I'Armee in collaboration, but the 

 data on which maps are based are usually provided by the territories 

 themselves; for instance the Belgian Congo provided documenta- 

 tion for the two sheets covering the Upper Congo and the Congo 

 Forest. The French Service has also just completed the publication 

 of a 1 15,000,000 series covering the continent in twenty-four sheets. 

 Of the 1:1,000,000 series, eighty-two sheets are published. The 

 Geographical Section, General Staff, has in the past published a 

 number of topographical maps of British territories, on scales of 

 1 1250,000, and 1 1125,000, but it has handed over this duty to local 

 survey departments where these have been formed. Thus it no 

 longer tries to maintain any series besides the 1:2,000,000, except 

 for countries like Somaliland where no survey organization exists. 

 It should be pointed out that many of the old i : 250,000 maps are 

 little more than reconnaissance sheets. To suggest how unsatisfac- 

 tory the maps often and twenty years ago are for present purposes, 

 it is worth instancing a recent case where an engineer made an 



