TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 917 



III. In Bristol at this moment are . all the elements of a thorough Regional 

 Survey, and this not only with map and guide-book. The observer of artistic 

 temperament may start from the Clifton Camera, with its outlook of colour and 

 stone, the very ideal of impressionist art, while the more strictly geographic outlook 

 is that of the Cabot Tower, with its admirable orientation brasses, pointing not 

 only to the city and the remoter prospect, but to the British Isles and the world 

 of imagination and discovery. Among the papers read to the Sections of the 

 British Association are a notable (and yearly increasing) proportion which take up 

 each its part of a definite survey of this or that region, magnetic or meteorological, 

 geological or biological, anthropological or industrial, economic or photographic ; 

 and these now need co-ordination in a Regional Survey of Britain. The excursions 

 of the Association are thus not only the needful recreative and social elements of 

 the scientific gathering, but also (with all respect to presidential addresses) the 

 most synthetic ones. Each excursion is thus a double lesson : first in investigation 

 in many separate sciences, but next in reuniting the results of these into the living 

 unity of Geography, which thus rises from the accurate specialisms of the carto- 

 grapher and relief-maker to the survey and interpretation of the whole living 

 world of Nature and of man. 



The bearing of this principle of Regional Survey and the use of practical 

 centres, such as the Outlook Tower afiords, is thus a great and increasing one. 

 The past generation has been occupied with the foundation or development of 

 innuQierable schools and colleges, of scientific and technical institutions of all kinds. 

 But the incompleteness of such contributions to intellectual or practical progress, 

 as also the rivalry of our methods of education, here ' classical,' there * scientific,' 

 there ' technical,' alike tend to disappear as they become Regional. 



Starting, then, from our own doors with an extending Regional Survey, and 

 with corresponding practical activities of home and school, our education becomes 

 once more, and that literally and concretely, the leading out of not only the 

 passive but also of the active powers. The varied educational resources of each 

 region or city, however extensive, thus require for then* unity and completeness 

 the establishment of institutions corresponding to the Outlook Towers of Edin- 

 burgh and Bristol, and, like them, accessible both to child and citizen. 



WEBNUSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. 



1. The Orthography, Location, and Selection of Names for the National 

 Maps. By Henry T. Crook, Memb.Inst.G.E. 



The method of determining correctly the location or orthography and relative 

 importance of place names for the national maps is a branch of cartographical 

 science which has scarcely received the attention its importance merits. With the 

 greater number of names which must appear there is no difficulty. It is with the 

 names of .«maller places, detached houses, farms, and ground features of the re- 

 moter districts that the difficulties arise, yet the correctness of these is often of equal 

 importance topographically to those of populous towns and well-known places. 



The Ordnance Survey system of obtaining the opinion of three persons in the 

 locality as authorities seems rather haphazard, for no qualification is required in 

 the authorities, nor does the ultimate selection in case of diflPerence of opinion 

 appear to be anything better than empirical. 



The Committee of Inquiry into the Ordnance Survey in 1892-93 paid little 

 attention to the subject except in the case of Welsh names, in which they consider 

 the system had not been altogether a success. The errors in other parts of the 

 kingdom largely arise from analogous causes to those investigated — namely, from 

 misunderstanding the local dialect or pronunciation. Wales and Scotland only 

 present the difficulties in a more acute form. 



The errors in names in the first map of Scotland led to the adoption of a method 

 for that country which is a step in the right direction — namely, seeking the 



3 p 2 



