482 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION E. 



While I am on the subject of instruments I would draw attention to the 

 importance of the whole history of the development of surveying instruments. 

 In the latter part of the eighteenth centui-y Great Britain provided the best 

 class of surveying instruments to all countries of Europe, at a time when high- 

 class geodetic work was being commenced in several countries ; and about this 

 time von Reichenbach spent a part of his time in this country working in the 

 workshops of Dollond and learning this particular class of work. Upon his 

 return to Bavaria he set up at ]Munich that establishment which soon provided 

 instruments of the highest class for many of the cadastral surveys which were 

 being undertaken in Central Europe. At Munich there is now a fine typical 

 collection of such instruments, but in this country the early advances of British 

 instrument-makers of surveying instruments are far from being adequately 

 represented in our National Museum in a manner commensurate with their 

 importance. The keen and enlightened zeal of geographers who are interested 

 in this branch of the subject would doubtless quickly bring to light much still 

 remaining that is of great interest, but which is yet unrecognised, while a 

 closer attention to instrumental equipment would lead to improvements and 

 advances in the types that are now employed. There is no modern work in 

 this country on the development of such instruments, and references to their 

 liistory are conspicuously rare in our journals, so that there is here an oppor- 

 tunity for those whose duties prevent them from undertaking travel or 

 exploration of a more ambitious kind. In the same way, those whose oppor- 

 tunities of field work are few can find a promising field of study in the early 

 methods and practice of surveying which have been discussed by many authors 

 from classical times onwards, and for which a considerable amount of material 

 exists 



In Geodesy and Surveying of high precision there is ample scope for all 

 who are attracted by the mathematical aspect of the subject ; the critical dis- 

 cussion of the instruments and methods employed and results obtained, both 

 in this country and in other lands, provides opportunity for much work of real 

 value, while its bearing upon geology, seismology, &c., has not yet been 

 adequately treated here. The detailed history of this part of our subject is 

 to be found in papers which have been published in the technical and scientific 

 journals of other countries for the most part ; here too little attention has been 

 given to the subject, in spite of the large amount of geodetic work which has 

 been executed in the British Empire, and which remains to be done in our 

 Colonies and overseas Dominions. 



The final expression of the surveyor's detailed measurements is found in the 

 map, and the adequate representation of any land surface on a map-sheet is 

 both a science and an art. Here we require additional work on all sides, for 

 there is hardly any branch of geography which offers so remunerative a field 

 for activity as cartography. We need the co-operation of trained geographers 

 to study requirements, and to make acquaintance with the limits of technical 

 methods of reproduction, so that they may be in a position to deal with many 

 questions which arise in the preparation of a map regarding the most suitable 

 mode of presentation of data, a matter which is purely geographical, but which 

 at the present time is too often left to the skilled draughtsman. Neither the 

 compilation nor the reduction of maps are merely mechanical processes. The 

 first requires great skill and care as well as technical knowledge and a sound 

 method of treatment if the various pieces of work which are brought together 

 to make up the map of any considerable area are to be utilised according to 

 their true worth. This demands a competent knowledge of the work which 

 has been previously done on the region, a first-hand acquaintance with the 

 'lata collected by the earlier workers, and the critical examination of them in 

 order that due weight may be given to the better material in the final result. 

 This is not a task to be handed over to the draughtsman, who will mechanically 

 incorporate the material as though it were all of equal accuracy, or will adjust 

 discrepancies arbitrarily and not on any definite plan. Such preliminary pre- 

 paration of cartographical material is a scientific operation which should be 

 carried out by scientific methods and should be completed before the work 

 reaches the draughtsman, who will then have but to introduce detail into a 

 network of controls which has been prepared for him and of which the accuracy 

 at all points has been definitely ascertained. Similarly in the second case the 



