202 REPORT — 1872. 



of country slioiild not be delicately drawn, accurately coloured, and cheaply j)ro- 

 duced. We all know what a geographical revelation is contained in a clear view 

 from a mountain top, and we also know that there was an immense demand for the 

 curiousty coarse bird's-eye views which were published during recent wars, because, 

 even such as they, are capable of furnishing a more pictorial idea of the geography 

 of a country tlian any map. It is therefore to be hoped that the art of designing 

 the so-called " bird's-eye views" may become studied, and that real artists should 

 engage in it. Such views of the environs of London would form \evj interesting 

 and, It might be, very artistic pictures. 



The advance of colour-printing has already influenced cartography in foreign 

 countries ; and it is right that it should do so, for a black and white map is but a 

 symbol — it can never be a representation of the many-coloured aspects of Nature. 

 The Governments of Belgium, Russia, Austria, and many other countries have 

 already issued coloured maps; but none have made farther advance than the 

 Dutch, whose maps of Java are printed with apparently more than ten diflerent 

 colours, and succeed in giving a vivid idea of the state of cultivation in that 

 country. 



I now beg to direct your attention to the following point. It is found that the 

 practice of printing maps in more than one colour has an incidental advantage of a 

 most welcome kind, namely, that it admits of an easy revision, even of the most 

 beautifully executed maps, for the following reason. The hill-work, in which the 

 delicacy of execution lies, is drawn on a separate plate, having perhaps been photo- 

 graphically reduced ; this has never to be touched, because the hills are permanent. 

 It is on another plate, which contains nothing else but the road-work, where the 

 coiTCctions have to be made ; and to do that is a very simple matter. I understand that 

 the Ordnance Survey Office has favourably considered the propriety of printing at 

 some future time an edition of the one-inch maps on this principle, and at least in 

 two colours — the one for the hills and the other for the roads. 



This being stated, I will now proceed to mention my second proposal. 



Recollecting what I have urged about the feasibility of largely increasing the 

 accessibility and the sale of Government maps, by publishing them in a pocket form 

 and selling them at the Head Post-offices, it seems to me a reasonable question for 

 the Committee of this Section to consider whether Government might not be 

 memorialized to consider the propriety of undertaking a reduced Ordnance Map of 

 the countiy, to serve as an accurate route-map and to fulfil the demand to which 

 the coarse county maps, which are so largely sold, are a sufficient testimony. The 

 scale of the reduced Government Map of France corresponds to what I have in 

 view ; it is one of 5 miles to an inch, within a trifle (-a^oV ot °f Nature), which is 

 just large enough to show every lane and footpath. Of course it would be a some- 

 what costly undertaking to make such a map, but much less so than it might, at 

 first sight, appear. Its area wordd be only one twenty-fifth that of the ordinary 

 Ordnance Map, and the hill-work of the latter might perhaps be photographically 

 reduced and rendered available at once. The desirability of maps such as these, 

 accurately executed and periodically revised, is imdoubted; while it seems impossible 

 that private enterprise should supply them except at a prohibitive cost, because 

 private publishers are necessarily saddled with tiie cost of re-obtaining much of 

 what the Ordnance Survey Office has already in hand for existing purposes. A 

 Government Department has unrivalled facilities for obtaining a knowledge of every 

 alteration in roads, paths, and boundaries of commons, and Government also 

 possesses an organized system in the post-offices fitted to vmdertake their sale. 

 The production of an accurate route-map seems a natiual corollary to that of the 

 larger Ordnance Maps, and has been considered to be so by many Continental 

 Governments. 



I therefore intend to propose to the Committee of this Section to consider the 

 propriety of memorializing Government to cause inquiries to be made as to the cost 

 of construction, and the probability of a remunerative sale, of maps such as those I 

 have described ; and, if the results are satisfactory, to undertake the construction 

 of a reduced Ordnance Map, on the same scale as that of France, to be printed in 

 colours and frequently revised. 



These, then, are the two projects to which I alluded — the one to secure the sale 



