E.—GEOGRAPHY. 9] 
by General Ferrié, and gradually assuming, I think we may say, without 
offence to that great enthusiast, a much more acceptable shape than the 
rather hard and unadaptable outline that was a little criticised by British 
geodesists and astronomers two years ago. 
The need of a strong central authority is as evident in Wireless Time 
Signalling as it is in the organisation of Broadcast. Happily for geo- 
graphers, the astronomers have organised themselves well since the War 
into a Union with thirty-two Commissions. The Union spends half its 
whole income on the sustenance of the Bureau International de |’ Heure, 
over which one of the Commissions exercises a general control. The 
prodigality of the Union, stated thus, is impressive. In cold fact, its 
contributions, fixed unfortunately in French francs, do not go very far 
to pay the cost of the service, which can be carried on only because the 
Director of the Paris Observatory has not hesitated to place the instru- 
mental resources and the magnificent house-room of his Observatory at 
the disposal of the Bureau ; while the keen interest of General Ferrié has 
secured the benevolent and beneficent co-operation of the French radio- 
telegraphic services, military and civil. Geographers owe a great debt of 
gratitude to the French in this matter. But we hope that the British 
Government: will not rest content with the modest part which Great 
Britain has played up to the present in this great development. The pro- 
gramme of the B.I.H. has shown up to now clear signs of spasmodic and 
rather lop-sided growth, while it did not provide for the principal needs of 
the surveyor in the field in Africa, A recent rather drastic revision made at 
Cambridge last month has cut off the superfluities and greatly improved 
the system; but it leaves a very evident place for Great Britain to fill. 
We have—or shall have soon—an ‘ Imperial Wireless Chain’ stretched 
out from the new station at Rugby to the furthest Dominions ; and we 
shall miss a great dramatic opportunity if from the opening of this service 
we do not insist that time signals from Greenwich shall be sent from Rugby 
and retransmitted in each link of the chain, that all Britain’s Dominions 
beyond the seas, her ships on the ocean, and her travellers wherever they 
may be, shall be able to take Greenwich Mean Time direct from the source. 
Let it not be thought that this would be overlapping the International 
Service. Our ideal should be an hourly service of accurate time all over 
the world, though that will not be realised at once ; but we in Great Britain 
could make a notable contribution to it by a well-chosen pair of signals 
straddled between the signals of the B.I.H. The technique of time trans- 
mission has been so greatly improved in these last years that there is no 
serious difficulty about it ; and of the Imperial services for which the Rugby 
station is built, there can be none, I think, more really, ifmodestly, useful 
than the propagation of Greenwich Mean Time throughout the Empire. 
The Science of Cartography is based upon the sciences of precise 
Survey, and I make no apology for having dwelt for some time on the 
methods of securing the foundations. But when these are well and truly 
laid, it is time to press forward the visible building—the maps—and a 
problem we share with the larger world is that of building withspeed and 
economy, not regarding too closely the interests vested in the old methods, 
but prepared if it seems wise to reinforce the ancient crafts with new. 
Two new powers have been added to the cartographer in these last years : 
flight to give him range of vision, and the stereoscopic plotter to give his 
