668 . REPORT— 1902. 



Modern Hequirements in Geograiihical Map-making. 



You will agree with me that geopjraphy in the abstract, without illustration— 

 the geography which used to be taught by geography books without maps — is but 

 a poor and inefficient branch of academic knowledge, hardly worthy even of an 

 infant school. It does not matter what branch of lliis comprehensive science you 

 approach, whether it is historical, or physical, or political, modern or ancient, the 

 only substantial presentment of the subject to man's underttanding is that which 

 has recourse to map illustration. Words (especially words bearing such indefinite 

 applications as our modern geographical terminology) can never convey to the 

 imagination the same substantial illustration as maps convey to the eye. You 

 may think that all this is mere truism ; so it may be ; but I assure you that what 

 I may call descriptive geography, that is to say, geography without the aid of 

 maps, has more than once nearly precipitated national disaster in quite modern 

 times — disaster quite as perilous as any which in military fields has been caused 

 by blank, wholesale ignorance of the features of a country in which strategic 

 movements are undertaken. There comes a time in the history of every developing 

 country when the increase of its people, and the consequent distribution of land, 

 demands surveys for the purposes oi fiscal administration. Consequentlj' such, 

 surveys are common everywhere; and from these have been built up, piece by 

 piece, like a child's puzzle, the geographical maps of many half-occupied lands, 

 illustrating only such portions as are adaptable to economic development, and 

 leaving blank all that promised to be unproductive and unprofitable. 



Field of Geodesy. 



It was only when it was discovered that the sum total of such a production was 

 apt to cause great confusion in land assessment, inasmuch as it often did not equal the 

 actual area of the land distributed, that there arose a school of mathematicians who 

 concerned themselves with determining the dimensions and figure of the earth, and 

 founded that apparently complicated system of primary map-making which 

 now takes count of such matters as the curvature of the earth's surface, the con- 

 vergency of meridians, and other spheroidal problems which affect the construc- 

 tion of the map. Thus arose ' geodesy,' and geodesy has numbered amongst its 

 apostles many of the greatest mathematicians of the age. Geodesy, the science 

 which deals with exact measurements, was never an embodiment of abstract 

 mathematical investigation. It had always a utilitarian side to it, and it is unfortu- 

 nate that this view of the science has been occasionally lost sight of in late years. 

 For we have not done with geodetic investigation yet. Magnificent as are the 

 results obtained by the mathematicians of the past, there are still further refine- 

 ments to be introduced into those factors which we daily use for the reduction of 

 our terrestrial observations ere we obtain perfect mathematical exactness (if we 

 ever attain it) in our results ; and we still must look to the processes of geodesy to 

 give us that backbone, that main axis of indisputable values from which our 

 network of triangulations may spread during the first steps in geographical map- 

 making. To a certain extent geodesy is the support of technical geography, and 

 a short inquiry into its present conditions of existence may not be out of place. 



It is to North America that we must now turn for instruction in the latest 

 development of the science, and to South Africa that we must look for its future 

 application. Russia has not lost sight of the necessity imposed on her for an 

 extension of her magnificent European geodetic system through the vast breadth 

 of her Asiatic possessions, but we ourselves in India are concerned nowadays 

 rather with scientific observations on collateral lines, and with the collating and 

 perfecting of the results attained by the great achievements of past years, than 

 with any developments in fresh fields of geodetic triangulation. Germany and 

 France, ever alert where colonial interests are concerned, are busy in Africa, but 

 I am not prepared to say how far their geographical eflbrts are based on the strict 

 principles of geodesy. 



In North America, along the meridian of 98° through Texas, Kansas, and 



