Smith : The Use of Maps in Botany. 1 75 



maps may prove too restricted. Dr. T. W. Woodhead's 

 surveys of woods showing" the distribution of the Bluebell, &c. 

 [Naturalist., 1904, pp. 41-48, 81-88), were carried out on twenty- 

 five-inch maps, although the striking" results obtained were lost 

 to some extent on the small published maps. The writer has 

 assisted in a botanical survey of a salt-marsh in which even the 

 twenty-five-inch scale was too small to exhibit the features 

 which it was necessary to show. In this case a survey of the 

 area was made with chain, level, and theodolite, and the results 

 were plotted to a scale of i : 500 or 10.5 feet to a mile (Oliver & 

 Tansley Nerv Phytologist, iii., p. 228, 1904). 



The cost of the Ordnance Survey maps is sufficient to deter 

 many from attempting to use them over large areas, and in 

 the case of the six-inch maps is too great for most individuals to 

 bear single-handed. It is not, however, beyond the means of 

 many of the Societies of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union to 

 acquire the maps of their own district, and the providing of 

 such a set of maps is thrown out as a suggestion to any 

 prospective donor who would secure a permanent souvenir of 

 his generosity. If the Society's set of maps were ruled in 

 squares as suggested by Mr. Cosmo Johns, any worker by using" 

 note-books ruled in squares could make his records without 

 defacing the niaps themselves. Dr. Woodhead, at the British 

 Association Meeting" at Cambridge, described a process of 

 manifolding copies of small areas from the Ordnance maps, 

 which would solve the difficult}' of providing several copies at 

 small cost. Personally we are not inclined to cut the maps up 

 to the extent proposed by Mr. Harker, because marginal work 

 on a map is rather liable to be irritating. A well-known ex- 

 president of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union contrives to carry 

 the quarter sheets of the six-inch map in a capacious pocket, 

 which may not be conducive to external appearance, but is very 

 efficient. The method of carrying" the map sheets in a portfolio 

 is probably the best yet devised. These, however, are details 

 which may be left to the individual to deal with. 



In closings these notes on the use of maps, it may be added 

 that the subject has been submitted to the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union Committee for Suggestions, and will be brought up for 

 discussion at one or more of the Field Meetings this year. 

 It will facilitate the preparation of a scheme of work if those 

 who have anything" to add to the subject will communicate it 

 either through the Naturalist or to the meeting, of which 

 notice will be given in the Excursion circular. 



1906 June I. 



