SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 325 
AFTERNOON. 
5. Sir G. ForpHam.—WNotes on the Itineraries, Road-books and Road- 
maps of France (with exhibition of maps). 
The paper deals primarily with France, but also touches upon the surrounding 
countries of Central and Western Europe, and is intended to show, for that area, the 
historical and bibliographical development which the class of geographical literature 
indicated by its title followed, from the publication of its earliest known examples 
up to the establishment of the railway system in the middle of the nineteenth century. 
The first known road-map of this epoch was published at Nuremberg in 1501 ; 
but no systematic road-books exist earlier than the comparatively well-known publica- 
tions of Charles Estienne, of which, after much research, a pretty complete list of 
editions, extending from 1552 to 1653, has been established. 
In the latter half of the sixteenth century scattered examples of similar itineraries 
are found: in Italy (1563 and 1572), in England (1576), and in Germany and in 
Geneva (1591). 
No road-maps of France are known earlier than 1632, although roads had been 
introduced, somewhat tentatively, into a few county maps of England just at the 
end of the sixteenth century by John Morden, and in that of Kent by Philip Symonson. 
The seventeenth century was, in France, characterised by something of stagnation 
in regard to road-map and road-book production, to which the work of John Ogilby 
in England affords a marked and important contrast. 
In the eighteenth century, however, the appearance in 1708 of the Liste Générale 
des Postes de France, published by the cartographer Alexis Hubert Jaillot, in Paris, 
initiates a set of annual official handbooks of the royal postal system, which con- 
tinued, with variation of details and title, until the road service was displaced by that 
of the railways in the middle of the following century. 
Various itineraries and road-maps were issued towards the end of the eighteenth 
century by publishers and authors such as Michel and Desuos, Coutans, Denis and 
Duteur, and magnificent road-maps of France constructed by the engineers and 
draughtsmen of the department of the Ponts et Chaussées. 
This is by far the most complete work of the kind ever undertaken, and it is thus 
of great cartographical importance. The collection should contain maps of at least 
3,000 leagues of road, with 800 sheets of the bridges, &c., but it does not appear now 
to be by any means complete. A general map of the roads of France, and a specially 
prepared set of maps of the principal roads of the kingdom, for the use of the King, 
were also prepared in the department. 
This unique work was concentrated mainly on the period 1740 to 1770, and invited 
study from a cartographical as well as a technical point of view. 
Particulars are also given, in this communication, of the representative itineraries 
and road-guides as well as of the road- maps of France of the first half of the nineteenth 
century. Reference is made to the author’s Catalogue des Guides-Routiers et des 
Itinéraires Francais, 1552-1850, published in Paris (Imprimerie Nationale) in 1920. 
6. Mr. F. G. Brnney.—Across North-East Land, Spitsbergen. 
The scope and chief difficulties of ‘ summer’ Arctic expeditions—Twofold aim of 
1924 Oxford University expedition—Exploration of North-East Land—A definite 
eapement into methods of exploration—Co-ordination of seaplane, sledging parties 
and ships. 
Building of the seaplane—Forced landing on the Arctic Ocean—Both ships on 
the rocks—IIIness—Landing of first two sledging parties. 
Description of coasts, with special reference to the east coast—Ice and weather 
conditions—Icebergs—The finding of land on the east coast—Movement of the 
ice-cap. 
Three sledging journeys in the interior—The crossing of North-East Land—lIce- 
canals(?)—Glacial phenomena of the interior—Weather conditions—Are dogs of 
value for summer sledging ?—Experiments in wireless transmission and reception 
by sledging parties. 
North-East Land from the air—Method of aerial photography adopted—Adven- 
tures of the seaplane—Arctic seaplane work—The mapping of Wahlenberg’s Bay— 
The land discovered—Geological and zoological work—General deductions from the 
work of the three Oxford expeditions (1921, 1923, and 1924). 
