CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 227 
of towns. This work was sanctioned by Government, and was being carried 
out by local architects and surveyors. A diagram of the road traffic would 
be imposed on the Ordnance Survey maps, depicting very clearly the widen- 
ing of the roads, and by different colours the detailed volume, and different 
classes of traffic passing over main roads at a fixed hour of the day. The 
great value of a plan of this sort was that it showed fairly accurately to a 
local authority from which direction the greatest volume of trade entered 
its town, and in the case of the through tratlic how it could easily be diverted 
in order to lessen the congestion in the centre. Mr. Sowerbutts mentioned maps 
showing by different colours the growth of Manchester from 1650 to 1885. All 
the different periods were shown by different colours, and the different stages 
were clearly seen. It was intended to let the plans give details of the growth 
as affected directly by manufactures and by position as a distributing centre. 
Then there was a plan dealing with the accessibility of the area by trams 
and by trains, and how better communication could be obtained. (A third 
plan showed the two systems superimposed. Two maps showing the rainfall 
might be very instructive when associated with rain statistics; the first one 
to give the average rainfall for a period, the second the number of days in 
which more than ‘01 inch fell. It was almost impossible to describe adequately 
the value of this work: surveyors, medical officers, and other officials had 
testified to its usefulness; in fact, some had gone so far as to suggest that a 
permanent department on the lines of the Ordnance Survey should be established. 
Mr. Sowerbutts advocated regional surveying in connection with those matters 
so vital to trade after the war. The point that struck him was, How was it 
going to be carried on? At present the Government was paying for it, 
supplying architects with work during the war. 
Dr. Baraer was very much puzzled about the architects, and wanted to 
know what Department was paying them. 
Mr. Face: The Local Government Board is paying. them. 
The Presipent spoke of the duty of societies to the best of their ability 
making a survey of their own locality or their own town and district. As an 
example, he handed round a pamphlet which was brought out by the Hertford- 
shire Natural History Society for the South-Eastern Union at its St. Albans 
Congress in 1911. Members of the society took particular divisions of the 
subject, and the area was restricted to a radius of five miles. Topography, 
geology, ‘hydrology, climate, flora, fauna, and archeology were given divisions. 
They also added an account of the County Museum. [If societies would do this 
in their own districts, and hand the result to the Regional Survey, he thought it 
would help considerably in a much larger scheme. With regard to the survey 
of the footpaths, they thought it would be better to have a separate association, 
and one was formed with a small subscription of 2s. 6d. a year—now no longer 
required. They were now in the fourth thousand of their may, and something 
like a thousand must have been bought by soldiers. 
Mr. Face said, with regard to Mr. Bevan’s remark about specialists, that 
quite a number of maps have been prepared for them by specialists, and in all 
the survey societies they made use of all the specialists they could get together. 
On the other hand, he still maintained that a vast amount of work in these 
surveys can be done by people who are not specialists. With regard to the civic 
surveys, those who were instrumental in getting them carried on did not intend 
them to stop after the war. He had not the slightest doubt that all this work 
would sooner or later get Government recognition. He had brought together a 
number of pamphlets dealing with the Regional Survey. Some of them they 
had in the transactions of the societies; those they had not got he thought 
might be of interest for their library. 
The PresipentT said that the great advantage of their library was that every 
paper published by their corresponding societies and indexed in their report 
could be seen in it at the offices of the British Association. 
