iOO 



jVA TURE 



[September 17, lyub 



fnituM lie prominence a few years ago, is a country of 

 too ^niall value to be worth tlie cost of any sort of survey, 

 .ipcl l!u: only maps that exist are based upon the route 

 skoiches of travellers and sportsmen and upon the work 

 done by a small section of the Survey Department of 

 India during the military operations five years ago. 



Leaving the east side of Africa and turning our eyes 

 westward, we may note that in the colony of the Gold 

 Coast a rigorous survey was rendered imperative by the 

 gold-mining boom of 1901. The work was entrusted to 

 Lieut. -Colonel Watherston, C.M.G., R.E. Owing to the 

 dense forest covering practically the whole country triangu- 

 lation would have been prohibitive in price and very slow 

 in execution. The initial positions were therefore fixed 

 by a network of long traverses, executed with all possible 

 refinements with steel tapes and theodolites. Astronomical 

 latitudes were observed by Talcott's method at every fifty 

 miles. The errors of misclosure of the traverses proved 

 to vary from about i in 2000 in unfavourable cases to 

 nearly i in 6000 — results inferior to triangulation, but at 

 the same time sufficiently accurate to form the basis of 

 a map with no appreciable errors on the paper. One 

 great defect of the traverse method of fixing points lies 

 in the practical impossibility of carrying the heights 

 through without occasional checking, either by lines of 

 levels or by trigonometrical observations. Such work 

 makes, therefore, an imperfect basis for topography, and 

 would only be used when natural features compel its 

 adoption. 



Northern Nigeria is a country of enormous area, and, 

 up to the pres_ent, of small revenue. It has therefore not 

 been found possible to allocate the funds for any svstematic 

 mapping. The existing maps are compilations based upon 

 sketches made by civil and military officers when travelling 

 upon duty and upon the surveys made by the different 

 Anglo-French and Anglo-German boundary commissions. 

 In 1905-0 Captain R. Ommaney, R.E., fixed the astro- 

 nomical longitudes of fifteen towns by exchange of tele- 

 graphic signals with Lagos. With the' aid of these values, 

 combined with a number of astronomical latitudes, it has 

 been possible to combine the material into something lilce 

 a complete map. It need, however, hardly be pointed out 

 that astronomical fixations are liable to large and un- 

 certain errors, due to the variation of local attVaction, and 

 cannot attain the precision of even a rapid triangulation. 

 In Southern Nigeria the experience has been somewhat 

 unfortunate. This colony has spent a very substantial 

 sum upon its survey department, and if the work had 

 been properly organised and systematically carried out we 

 should by now be in possession of a complete map of a 

 large portion of the country. Unluckily, the mistake has 

 been made of detaching survey parties for non-geographical 

 purposes, such as the erection of telegraph lines, work 

 doubtless urgently required in the interests of the colony, 

 but not lying within the sphere of a survey department. 

 Thus systematic progress was rendered impossible, and, 

 though isolated pieces of triangulation and long lengths 

 of traverses have been done, no topographical map of 

 any area yet exists. 



_ Of the remaining West African colonies the Gambia 

 river is a narrow piece of land with boundaries running 

 parallel to the river banks, and, except for the actual 

 trade along the river, is unimportant. In Sierra Leone 

 the country in the immediate vicinity of Freetown was 

 surveyed by the colonial survey section, a small party 

 employed by the War ofiice for the purpose of making 

 surveys of places of soecial militarv importance. The 

 map of the remainder of the colony Is a compilation based 

 on miscellaneous material. 



In the course of this summary of the state of the 

 mapping of British Africa mention has been made of the 

 surveys made by joint commissions appointed for the 

 delimitation of International frontiers. No small part of 

 the existing map Is due to work of this class. Thus joint 

 .'\nglo-French commissions have marked out the frontiers 

 of_ the Gambia. Sierra Leone, the Gold Const, and 

 Nigeria; .Anglo-German commissions the eastern boundarv 

 of Nigeria, the boundaries between British and German 

 East Africa, between German East Africa and North-East 

 Rhodesia from Lake Nyasa to Tantfanvika, and between 

 Bcchuanaland and German South-West .Africa : Anglo- 

 NO. 202Q, VOL. 78] 



Portuguese commissions the frontiers between Portuguese 

 East Africa and North-East Rhodesia and Nyasaland re- 

 spectively. Useful surveys have also been made In the 

 course of the mutual demarcation of the frontiers between 

 Abyssinia and the Soudan on the west and British East 

 Africa on the south ; also of the frontier between the 

 colony of Sierra Leone and the Republic of Liberia. 



Important as the work done by these commissions has 

 been, its value would be greatly enhanced if the reports 

 of each commission were published In a succinct and easily 

 accessible form. Such' reports would naturally contain a 

 record of the actual frontier as finally ratified, and also 

 a technical account of the survey methods employed. 

 They would thus be of permanent use both to the official 

 or ollicer on the spot for the easy settlement of any dis- 

 putes that may arise, and to the chief of any future 

 boundary commission as an aid to the selection of the 

 methods of survey most suitable to the particular country 

 with which he Is concerned. 



Up to three years ago many of the African protectorates 

 were under the tutelage of the Foreign Office, while the, 

 older colonies were under the Colonial Office. The reports 

 of Boundary Commissions are therefore scattered through 

 official documents in the two offices, and are drawn up 

 upon no uniform model. Now that the superintendence 

 of all these territories has been handed over to the Colonial 

 Office, and that body has set Itself such an excellent' 

 example in the appointment of the Colonial Survey Com- 

 mittee and the publication of Its reports, it Is greatly to 

 be hoped that they will follow up the good work and 

 systematise and publish all these Boundary Commission 

 reports. If a model for such a publication is desired, I 

 may refer to the account of the demarcation of the Turko- 

 Egyptian frontier between Rabah on the Mediterranean 

 to the Gulf of Akaba, lately issued by the Egyptian survey. 



The account which I have endeavoured to give you, 

 short and imperfect as it is, of the present state of the 

 mapping of British Africa will have shown you clearly 

 that there is a large amount of excellent work now in 

 course of execution, and that there has been, especially 

 during the last few years, very considerable progress made 

 towards coordinating this work and towards maintaining 

 certain fixed standards of accuracy, rapidity, and economy. 



It will naturally occur to you to inquire whether this 

 coordination could not advantageously be pressed a step 

 further, and whether all the Isolated survey departments, 

 now worliing in the various colonies and protectorates, 

 could not be amalgamated under one executive head ; 

 whether, in fact, a Survey Department of Africa, pre- 

 cisely analogous to the Survey Department of India, could 

 not be formed. The advantages of such a step are 

 obvious, but must not be allowed to blind us to the 

 difficulties. We have, in the first place, the objection to 

 be met that the South African colonies would. In present 

 circumstances, almost certainly refuse to join in any 

 general scheme, and would not consent to any arrange- 

 ment whereby money raised In one colony would be spent 

 outside its own geographical limits. If, however, we 

 leave South .Africa out of the question, the financial 

 difficulty tends to disappear. Both our East and West 

 .African possessiois are, in general, not yet in a position 

 to maintain themselves, and are still, and will be for some 

 time to come, partially supported by grants from the 

 Imperial Treasury. To divert a portion of these grants 

 to pay for the maintenance of a survey department would 

 only be a matter of account, and could be adjusted so as 

 to cause no hardship to any one colony. There remains 

 the geographical difficulty of space. The fact th.'t the 

 heads of the department would have to keep in' close 

 personal touch with countries differing entirely In 

 character, and perhaps three months' journey from each 

 other, does not appear to offer any Insuperable objections, 

 and I cannot avoid expressing the hope that it may be 

 found possible at a no very remote date to take some 

 steps in the direction of a consummation which appears 

 so desirable. 



In giving my evidence before the Royal Commission on 

 the War in .South Africa, presided over by Lord Elgin, I 

 outlined tlie general features of a scheme under which the 

 Imperial Government would undertake the topographical 

 mapping of all our oversea possessions, apart from self- 



