on national geological surveys : — europe. 233 



Spain. 

 Comision del Mapa Geol6gico tie Espaiia (Madrid). 



The Commission was formed in 1849, with F. Luxan as director. At 

 one time under the Statistical Department, it was, in 1870, placed with 

 that of the Mining Engineers. The existing organisation and systematic 

 publication date from 1873, when the present director, Manuel Fernandez 

 de Castro, was appointed. * 



The Government topographical map of Spain is on the scale of 

 1 :«50,000, with contours at 20 metres apart. This was commenced only 

 in 1875, and few sheets are published ; it will be completed in about 1,080 

 sheets ; this map is not used by the Geological Survey. Maps published 

 by F. Coello on the scale of 1 : 200,000, are those usually employed in 

 the field work of the survey. The longitude in all is reckoned from 

 Madrid, 3° 41' W. of Greenwich. 



The staff of the survey since 1873 has usually contained six mining 

 engineers and seven or eight assistants. 



The maps are issued on the scale of 1 : 400,000, with the reports on 

 each province (see below). 



The publications of the survey consist of the ' Boletin,' dating from 

 1874, and the ' Memorias,' dating from 1873. 



Each volume of the ' Memorias ' is devoted to the ' Description fisica 

 y geologica ' of a single province ; mining is added in the title of some, 

 and agriculture in others ; these latter being those written by Daniel de 

 Cortazar. The volumes, of from 200 to 400 pages, contain plates of 

 fossils, sections, &c, and also the maps (1 : 400,000) already referred to. 



The 'Boletin ' contains shorter descriptions of special districts, trans- 

 lations of foreign memoirs on Spanish geology, &c. The maps here are 

 on various scales. Altogether, since 1873, twenty-seven provinces have 

 been described ; eleven of them with maps of 1 : 400,000. 



Descriptions of some provinces, with maps, were published before the 

 reorganisation of the survey in 1873 ; some had maps of 1 : 400,000. 



The palseontological work of the survey is scattered throughout the 

 various volumes, but this is now being collected and separately issued. 



The largest (and in some respects the best) general map of Spain and 

 Portugal is that of De Verneuil and Collomb (1 : 1,500,000), published 

 in Paris in 1864; and a 2nd edition, with text, in 1868 (now out of 

 print). Another map (1 : 2,000,000) was published by F. de Botella, of 

 the Spanish Survey, in 1881. The price of this is 15 francs ; there is 

 no text. 



At the conclusion of the work of the survey, now approaching, a 

 complete map of Spain, on the scale of 1 : 400,000, will be published, in 

 sixteen sheets ; the first sheet will probably be published in 1885. 



1 A full account of this survey was published for the Mining Exhibition in 

 Madrid, 1883 — Com. Mapa Geol. Esjmn., sw origen, vicisitudes y circunstancias acttiales, 

 ■with two index maps (Boletin, t. x.). An earlier publication — ' Memoria .... del 

 Mapa Geol. JSspana.' 1876, Madrid, pp. 183, gives a fall account of the geological 

 literature of Spain (in provinces) and its foreign possessions. 



