41 



ing testimony to the excellence of the methods there employed for 

 securing accuracy and expediting the work, the latter especially, by 

 the extensive introduction of mechanical processes of engraving, and 

 the masterly application of the electrotype for procuring duplicates 

 of the copperplates. 



Intimately connected with the survey of the interior, and of even 

 greater importance to the commerce of the country, is that of the sea- 

 coasts, carried on under the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. 

 It is not many years since attention was drawn by the late Mr Gal- 

 braith to the very erroneous character of all the published charts and 

 sailing directions then available for the Firth of Clyde, in which it is 

 shown " that the master of a vessel, trusting to the charts then in 

 ordinary use, would almost certainly be wrecked if his reckonings 

 were right." 



It is gratifying to find that danger from this cause no longer 

 exists in that quarter, admirable surveys being now completed of the 

 River and Firth of Clyde, and of the lochs connected with them, many 

 of the sheets of which are already published, and the others are in 

 course of being engraved. The whole of the north, south, and east 

 coasts of Scotland, with the Shetland and Orkney Islands, have been 

 surveyed, and most of the sheets are published. The western coast of 

 Sutherland is also surveyed, so that the portion of this great work 

 still remaining to be accomplished comprises the coasts of Ross, Inver- 

 ness, Argyll, and the Hebrides. All these surveys have been con- 

 ducted by able and experienced officers under the enlightened and 

 zealous superintendence of the Hydrographer Royal, Admiral Sir 

 Francis Beaufoii;, who, in his anxiety to insure the utmost attainable 

 accuracy, revises and corrects with his own hand every sheet of the 

 .survey before it is sent to press. 



Mr Johnston then exhibited a map, shewing by colours the pre- 

 sent state of the Ordnance and Hydrogi-aphical surveys in Scotland, 

 and a comparative table of the proportionate scales of maps con- 

 structed from the surveys of different countries in Europe. 



The following Gentleman was duly elected an Ordinary 

 Fellow : — 



Sir Georob Douqlas, Bart., of Springwood Park. 

 VOL. III. 1) 



