210 TIMOTHY PONT 



swept wastes of Sutherland and Caithness. Nothing 

 is known of the method he employed in surveying. 

 The maps are beautifully drawn, crowded with names, 

 and with the land features clearly indicated. The 

 marvel is, not that there should be some errors in 

 distances and contours, but that these should not be 

 more obvious and frequent. Pont had not the facili- 

 ties enjoyed by modern surveyors using scientific 

 instruments ; we know not whether he worked by the 

 astronomical or trigonometrical method; if by the 

 former, the work must have been interrupted by long 

 intervals of cloudy weather; if by the latter, it is 

 difficult to understand how, in so mountainous a 

 country, he obtained triangulations even approxi- 

 mately correct within the limits of time occupied in 

 his survey. 



Admitting that Font's maps fall far short of accur- 

 acy, he mast be recognised as the pioneer in Scottish 

 cartography. He enabled his countrymen for the first 

 time to become acquainted with the general shape of 

 the kingdom, the relative position of the adjacent 

 islands, the course of rivers, the mountain ranges and 

 such forests as had survived fire and the axe. Stu- 

 dents of place-names will find abundant suggestion in 

 their phonetic rendering which he used. To take an 

 example at random from my own neighbourhood 

 there are two places named, according to modern 

 orthography, Bardrochwood, one in Carrick on the 

 River Stinchar, the other in Galloway on the Money- 

 pool Burn. Written thus, the name bears a sylvan 

 suggestion; but in fact it has nothing to do with 'a 



