M2 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



are being pushed on by military parties as part of the local survey department. 

 The area of exact work done amounts now to some 30,000 square miles. In 

 Uganda a military party has recently completed a large block of country, and 

 in this Protectorate thoroughly reliable maps of 32,000 square miles are now 

 available. In Southern Nigeria a completely reorganised survey department is 

 tackling in a thoroughly systematic fashion the difficult task of mapping a forest- 

 clad country. We shall shortly see the results. 



For the information of those who have not travelled in tropical Africa it 

 should be remarked that surveying in such countries is attended by eveiy sort of 

 difficulty and discomfort, and too often by illness and serious discouragement. 

 It is one thing to sit at home in a comfortable office and plan a scheme of survey, 

 and quite another thing to carry it out on the spot. We do not, I am convinced, 

 give enough honour and credit to those who actually get the work done in such 

 trying circumstances Honest accurate survey work in the tropics puts a much 

 greater strain on a man than exploratory sketching. To picture what the con- 

 ditions are, imagine that you are to make a half-inch survey of the South of 

 England ; cover the whole country with dense forest ; put mangrove swamps up 

 all the estuaries ; raise the temperature to that of a hot-house ; introduce all man- 

 ner of insects ; fill the country with malaria, yellow fever, blackwater fever, and 

 sleeping-sickness ; let some of your staff be sick ; then have a fight with the local 

 treasury as to some necessary payment, and be as cheerful as you can. That is 

 one side of the medal. On the other side there is the abiding interest which the 

 surveyor feels in the country, the natives, and the work ; the sense of duty done ; 

 and the satisfaction of opening up and mapping for the first time a portion of 

 this world's surface. 



There is no time to mention other surveys in Africa, and I will pass on to a 

 very interesting part of the world, the Federated Malay States. In this pros 

 perous country much excellent geographical work is being done by the combined 

 survey department which was established under a Surveyor-General in the 

 year 1907. The department is in good hands, and the commencement of a regu- 

 lar topographical series is being undertaken. 



I wish it were possible to prophesy smooth things about Ceylon. From our 

 special point of view the situation leaves much to be desired. There is not yet 

 published a single topographical map, and the topographical surveys are progress- 

 ing at a rate which, under favourable conditions, may result in the maps bein^ 

 completed in -the year 1970. 



In closing this inadequate review of the principal surveys which are being 

 undertaken in the Crown Colonies and Protectorates, I should mention that the 

 co-ordinating factor is the Colonial Survey Committee, which every year pub- 

 lishes a report which is presented to Parliament. 



The India Office, is of course concerned with that great department the Survey 

 of India. The Indian Empire has an area of about 1,800,000 square miles, and 

 as, under the arrangements approved in 1908, the standard scale of survey is to 

 be one inch to one mile, the area of paper to be covered will be 1,800,000 square 

 inches. Actually this is divided into about 6,700 sheets. The Survey of India 

 has always been famous for its geodetic work and for its frontier surveys and 

 methods. Its weak point used to be its map reproduction. This has been 

 greatly improved. But personally I feel that if, for most military and popular 

 purposes, a half-inch map is found suitable for England, as is undoubtedly the 

 case, there is no reason why a half-inch map should not also be suitable for 

 India. It is mainly a question of putting more information on the published 

 map, and of engraving it and using finer means of reproduction. If this smaller 

 scale were adopted all the information now presented could be shown, and the 

 number of the sheets would be reduced from 6,700 to 1,675, a saving of 5,000 

 sheets. It is difficult to avoid the feeling that the Survey of India is over- 

 weighted with the present scheme. The scheme has, however, many merits. It 

 will be impossible to carry it out unlejs the department is kept at full strength. 



The Board of Agriculture is the Department which is charged with the admin- 

 istration of the Ordnance Survey. The Ordnance Survey spends some 200,000?. 

 a year, and for that sum it furnishes the inhabitants of the United Kingdom 

 with what are, without doubt, the finest and most complete series of large-scale 

 maps which any country possesses. There is nothing in any important country 



