GEOLOGICAL MAPS 209 



the nineteenth century. In 1834 Sir Henry De la 

 Beche having pointed out the great benefits that 

 were likely to accrue from a systematic survey of 

 our Islands, a government survey was initiated; 

 and there is no better commentary on this piece of 

 departmental foresight than that the example of 

 the United Kingdom was followed rapidly by our 

 colonies, at their request, and by every other 

 civilized nation. 



The early workers in Britain laboured under 

 difficulties imposed by the small scale and imper- 

 fections of the topographical maps, by the somewhat 

 immature state of the science, and through the 

 urgent necessity of completing a survey as rapidly 

 as possible. These difficulties, however, did not 

 prevent the surveyors from finishing a piece of 

 work, the economic value of which was far in excess 

 of the cost of production. 



The surveyors' map, constructed on a scale of 

 one inch to one mile a scale eminently suited to 

 pioneer-work at once threw much light on the 

 distribution of coal, metals, and other useful 

 materials. In the case of coal, it laid down, for the 

 first time, the limits of those strata in which and 

 beneath which it is useless to search for coal, 

 the outcrops of those formations which normally 

 contain coal in this country, and the surface- 

 position of those deposits under which beds of coal 

 might reasonably lie concealed. The result of such 

 a survey, therefore, was, amongst others, to give 



S. S.N. 14 



