Memorial on Ordnance Survey. 9 



" To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's 

 Treasury. 

 " The Memorial of The Philosophical Society or Glasgow, 

 Sheweth — 



" That your Memorialists have learned that 

 the Ordnance Survey of various parts of Scotland, and amongst others 

 of the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, and Dumbarton, is now being laid 

 down and lithographed, with a view to publication, on the scale of one 

 two-thousand five-hundredth part of the natural dimensions, or 25'34!4 

 inches to one mile. 



" That your Memorialists are fully sensible of the advantages of this 

 scale, as being the most suitable for all purposes connected with the 

 transfer and improvement of landed property, the execution of public 

 works, and various other purposes. 



" That your Memorialists nevertheless beg leave to represent, that 

 the said scale, from not exposing to the eye more than a very limited 

 extent of country at one view, and for other reasons, is too large for the 

 prehminary planning of public works, and the choosing of the most 

 economical and otherwise suitable sites and lines for them — purposes of 

 the highest importance to the national prosperity, and for which the 

 most advantageous scale is, the smallest which is consistent with show- 

 ing all roads, buildings, and other important objects distinctly in their 

 natural proportions, without exaggeration of dimensions, or the use of 

 conventional representations of such objects. 



" That the scale which best fulfils these conditions has been well 

 ascertained, by the experience of scientific and practical men, to be one 

 which is either exactly or approximately one ten-thousandth part of the 

 natural dimensions ; for example, six inches to one mile, which is one 

 ten thousand five hundred and sixtieth part of the natural dimensions. 



" That your Memorialists understand that the plans of certain parts 

 of Scotland are now being engraved and published on the scale of six 

 inches to one mile, or thereabouts, and that the process of making reduced 

 copies of the survey on this scale is neither difficult nor expensive. 



" Your Memorialists therefore beg leave respectfully to represent to 

 your Lordships, that it would be a great advantage to the district of 

 which your MemoriaHsts are the chief scientific Society, as well as to 

 the country at large, if the plans of the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, 

 and Dumbarton, besides being published on the large scale employed 

 for the original laying down of the survey, were also reduced to, and 

 engraved and published upon a scale either of six inches to one mile, or 

 of one tun-thousandth part of the natural dimensions ; such reduced 

 plans exhibiting the levels of the ground in figures, and also by means 



Vol. IV.— No. 1. o 



